Luxury: celebrating haute couture

An elevated state

In the heart of Paris, ‘Luxury’ was granted rare access to couture creations by some of the industry’s most illustrious maisons

Photographer: Chantelle Dosser
Fashion director: Sarah Maisey
Model: Ana at Premium Models
Hair stylist: Mickael Jauneau at Agency Aurelien
Make-up: Isabelle Kryla at Airport Agency

For anyone interested in French gastronomy, it is currently almost impossible to escape the instantly recognisable features of Mory Sacko, 29. Not surprising, given that this captivating Franco-Malian from the gritty Parisian suburbs stands 6 feet 5 inches tall, with dreadlocks tucked into a chic kimono- style chef’s jacket, and that his restaurant, MoSuke, is currently the hottest foodie address in Paris.

What’s more, he is proposing what seems to be a genuinely new approach to gourmet cuisine by combining the tastes and ingredients of France, Japan and West Africa – something that threatens to shake up the cosy world of French fine dining.

He took the first step to becoming a media star by enchanting the French public as a candidate on television’s Top Chef in 2019. Michelin then made the near-revolutionary decision to award him his first star only two months after MoSuke opened, followed by the prestigious Gault et Millau food guide crowning him France’s Young Chef of the Year 2020.

Sacko now has his own TV programme, Cuisine Ouverte, attracting more than 1.5 million viewers, and Time magazine has identified him as one of their Next Generation Leaders. But while media hype and social media buzz may instantly acclaim the next brave new face of Gallic cuisine, I am much more interested to know what his actual cooking is all about.

MoSuke is discretely tucked away in a narrow street behind the sprawling Montparnasse train station. The restaurant is a quaint two-storey house with a plant- filled courtyard.

There’s a minimalist dining room and kitchen on the ground floor, while the chef and his business partner, Emilie Rouquette, live right upstairs.

I arrive as the lunchtime service is winding down; a decidedly young, hip crowd of diners, enchanted by the chef and his cuisine, are reluctant to leave at even 4pm. When a restaurant is permanently booked out, an afternoon interview normally allows the journalist time to sample a single dish to get an idea of the cuisine. Not at MoSuke.

Sacko arrives for the interview in black T-shirt and jeans, dons a blue apron, and with a mischievous grin, heads straight for his tiny kitchen. The rest of the staff have gone home, and for the next two hours, he single- handedly conjures up a series of spectacular dishes. He squats down to chat during each course, insisting: “I just don’t think I can talk about my cuisine without you tasting it. It is a simple as that.” It’s a refreshingly humble attitude from such a stellar rising star.

The recipes he is creating are quite simply a tour de force, each dish an explosion of flavours, spices and ingredients that you will not find in any other French fine-dining restaurant. A peppery Ivorian fish soup, using delicate Japanese katsuobushi dried fish instead of the more pungent African variety, paired with a smoky Normandy scallop and stuffed okra. Plump Brittany lobster, flame-grilled, melded with nori harissa and squid ink sauce, adding a unique umami effect. Succulent beef from Aubrac, aged in karité butter, surrounded by a smooth, nutty Senegalese mafé sauce, where miso magically lightens the traditional palm oil.

When cooking a chicken yassa, rather than using just the traditional lemon, he adds Japanese citrus fruits – yuzu, kabosu, sudachi – which bring complexity and intense aromas. And for dessert, he gives his chef pâtissier exotic pairing challenges, and I feast off three different combinations of chocolate and wasabi.

When discussing his cuisine, he studiously avoids the dreaded F word – fusion – and for me, the term that best expresses his cooking is alchemy.

“I am creating what you can call a new cuisine, merging African spices and flavours with locally sourced French produce and then adding in subtle influences from Japanese cooking that can subtly soften the aggression you find in African street food,” he explains.

“I definitely have an ambition for African cuisine and that is for it to be recognised as gastronomy with a capital ‘G’. It merits being alongside French, Italian and Japanese cuisine, and not just dismissed as tasty street food that does not have a place in a gourmet restaurant,” Sacko says.

“That means putting in a lot of work, experimentation and reflection about how to adapt the incredible tastes of Africa for a sophisticated Western palate. I cannot just serve a chicken yassa or beef mafé as we eat it in West Africa, as it is too spicy, too heavy,” he explains.

“And I also need to work out how best to use our unique products like attiéké fermented cassava, sweet potato, ancient cereals like fonio, and fabulous fruits and flowers from baobab and mango to hibiscus. Of course, when my mum comes to the restaurant, she will say that I am not cooking our traditional dishes properly, as she expects them to taste like her home cooking rather than the more refined interpretation I am trying to achieve.”

It is not surprising that the clientele at MoSuke is decidedly young, ready and excited to try new tastes and be surprised. It may take some time for him to convert France’s older, more conservative generation, who have become used to the bland cuisine served up by most Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian restaurants, a far cry from the authentic ethnic tastes on offer in London or New York.

“I grew up in a big family of nine children where every night, my mother, who was born in Ivory Coast and brought up in Senegal, cooked delicious West African dishes,” the chef recalls.

“But the kitchen was out of bounds, her territory, and the thought of becoming a chef never entered my head. All I was interested in was Japanese Manga cartoons, French rap music and following my beloved PSG football team.”

But watching TV programmes on gourmet restaurants and luxury hotels gave Sacko the incentive to opt out of France’s classic education system at
14 and enrol in hotel school, where he caught the gourmet bug and learnt classic French cooking techniques. Working his way up through the kitchens of Parisian palace hotels such as the Shangri-La and Royal Monceau, he applied to join the Mandarin Oriental’s kitchen brigade under chef Thierry Marx, another Parisian banlieue boy renowned for his passion for Japanese cuisine.

Marx has clearly been a mentor for Sacko, promoting him rapidly to sous-chef and encouraging the dream of owning his own restaurant. When MoSuke opened in 2019, Sacko was only 27, but brimming with creative energy, self confidence and ambition, choosing a name that forges his own with that of Yasuke, a 16th-century emancipated African slave who became the first and only black Samurai in Japan.

Sacko admits that “being awarded the Michelin star just after we opened was what I had always dreamed of and worked for, but I had no idea it would come so quickly, and now, when they say I am the new face of French cuisine, well I am flattered, but honestly, I think I am just a classic story of modern French youth today. This is all a reflection of how the cultural face of France is changing.”

When discussing how MoSuke was closed down during Covid lockdowns and curfews only two months after opening, Sacko is one of the rare French chefs who does not immediately start complaining. With his irrepressible optimism, he recounts how, “when only takeaway was possible, I actually found it inspiring, a challenge to make what I call fast good food, even with basic dishes like fried chicken. I then did two pop-ups offering Afro-Japanese street food, one in the Museum of Modern Art here in Paris, the other in Lyon. And today, I am close to opening a street food cantina just around the corner from MoSuke.

“Then, during lockdown, when I was working on new recipes and experimenting with fermentations, infusion and smoking, I got a call from France Telévisions offering me my own TV programme.

It has been an amazing experience because they actually listened to what I wanted to do and agreed to everything,” Sacko says.

Considering the current political situation in France, where the coming presidential election is engulfing the nation in racist, religious and anti-immigration rhetoric, it really is quite something to see the son of African immigrants travelling around “la France profonde”, presenting his own exotic gastronomic take on classic regional French dishes such as bouillabaisse and boeuf bourguignon, cooking alongside famous French chefs.

The biggest surprise about Mory Sacko comes just as I am leaving, when we are talking about travel. I discover that although he has visited Mali from a young age on family holidays, along with the rest of West Africa and some European countries, he has yet to actually travel to the Land of the Rising Sun, while the discovery of Asian and other world cuisines also awaits him.

Who knows what direction his cuisine will take after he tries authentic Malaysian and Thai dishes, Indian curries, Lebanese mezze and the subtle tastes of Cantonese and Szechuan cooking.

Saudi artist Manal Al Dowayan’s latest canvas is a Lady Dior bag, writes Priyanka Sacheti

Since 2016, Dior has been inviting artists from around the world to reimagine its Lady Dior bag through their own artistic lens. For the sixth instalment of the Dior Lady Art programme, Saudi Arabian artist Manal Al Dowayan’s vision for the bag pushes the boundaries of both art and fashion.

Al Dowayan explains how the collaborative process began with a single design, but expanded from there. “I am the type of person who likes to give options to myself and when I saw the design, I wondered: ‘Is this the bag that I truly wanted to make?’”

So she came up with another two designs and when she presented them to the Dior team, they welcomed them all, even though one was not even a Lady Dior. “It’s a testament to Dior and their openness to creative processes from artists,” she says.

The bags not only bear Al Dowayan’s artworks from over the years, but also an imprint of her extremely detailed approach to her craft. One such nuance was the translation of the Dior letters into Arabic, something that had never been done before. Al Dowayan had initially sent samples of the letters in classic calligraphic style, before deciding to change them to versions she had personally written, as she felt this would be closer to her vision.
The photography on the bags is deeply personal. The first bag, The Boys, depicts three young boys and a Land Cruiser set against a graffiti-emblazoned wall, a combination of two artworks she had created for collections in 2010 and 2016. “My father had photographed these three boys in northern Saudi Arabia in 1962 before going off to study in the United States,” she says. The images evoke nostalgia, documenting a young man bidding adieu to his country as he goes off to explore his dreams, while the car symbolises a pivotal moment of transformation in Saudi Arabia.

The second bag features an image from her Landscapes Of The Mind collection. This series of images captures the oil facilities near her home, but she “plants” palm trees in the oil tankers to remind us that while oil has radically transformed lives in Saudi Arabia, there is also a reality of how damaging fossil fuels are for the environment. The bag contains other symbols representing transformation: two doves, for example, with birds being a recurring motif in her work. A short Arabic statement is stitched into the back of the bag, also taken from one of her artworks, and reads: “I live in the eye for the moment.”

“I felt it was very relevant vis-a-vis transformation, things we didn’t understand then and more today, whether it be the pandemic or the contemporary understanding of the effects of fossil fuels,” she says.
It is the third bag that most strongly embodies the meshing of art and function. It is a sculpted piece inspired by the forms of the desert rose crystal, which Al Dowayan has been increasingly exploring in her art. This rare crystal forms in arid conditions following heavy rainfall, and Al Dowayan had encountered it in her immediate surroundings since childhood.

“People historically believed that the rocks carried spirits that spoke to the desert traveller,” she says. She perceives it as being very feminine, and loves its form and ephemeral quality, for it doesn’t last for long, dissolving within a few years.

“We had to figure out the medium we wanted to use,” she says about bringing her bag to reality. “I sent [the Dior team] crystals from Arabia, they scanned and 3-D printed them before casting them in gold metallic fibreglass with a bit of metal frame. It’s a new digital way of producing bags, unlike the old-school leather-making technique,” she says.

Al Dowayan talks about how her four sisters helped her design the bags and encouraged her to take on the project; it became a bonding experience for them during the pandemic.

“We would meet once a week on Zoom to discuss the project and discuss every single detail about the bags,” she says, adding that it would have otherwise been a lonely process while navigating the pandemic and lockdown in London.

“I enjoyed being taken out of my comfort zone as an artist, the challenge was unexpected and the result was absolutely unexpected,” she says.
“When attending the Riyadh and Dubai launches, I saw that Saudi women were very emotional and excited to encounter the bags. Having imbibed these iconic brands their whole life, it was a proud and personal moment to see images by a designer from their country on a brand like Dior.”

Covid-19 and a collaboration with plus-size brand Marina Rinaldi have changed how designer Marco de Vincenzo views his work, Sarah Maisey discovers

Marco de Vincenzo has spent the past two years grappling with many of the same emotions as the rest of us, which he has channelled into a new “experimental” project that will be unveiled this month. While reticent about giving anything away ahead of his runway show, the designer describes this latest initiative as new and more inclusive. “This is an experiment, so I am curious to see the reaction.”

Starved of the stimuli that travel would traditionally offer, de Vincenzo, who is also head designer for leather goods at Fendi, was forced to turn inward, using his work to process what was happening around him. “There is always something to discover when you live through something as unique as Covid, and the new project is the result of my loneliness and being in my own, intimate world.

“Fendi preferred to stop travel for their designers,” he explains during a recent trip to Dubai – his first in a while. “It has been two years since I travelled abroad. It was so strange, to have to find creativity inside.”

The Sicilian-born creative graduated from Milan’s European Institute of Design and in 2000, at the age of 21, joined Fendi, where he works alongside Silvia Venturini Fendi. In January 2009, he made his fashion debut at Paris Haute Couture Week and, that September, launched his eponymous women’s ready-to-wear line at Milan Fashion Week. In 2019, he expanded into menswear.

“I am very busy,” he acknowledges. “For 12 years now, I don’t know any other way. I think I would miss it if I stopped, as I am the kind
of designer who finds energy working and creating. And I like what I do. Sometimes the pressure is too much, especially working for a big brand like Fendi, but I am happy. I am here to work, and fashion gives me many opportunities.”

Always open to new adventures, a recent project is a two-season collaboration with Italian plus-size fashion label Marina Rinaldi, which spurred a fundamental shift in his outlook. “This is my first collaboration, so it was very nice to connect with another story to understand what they are looking for,” he says.

As with most designers, de Vincenzo is used to creating clothes for an industry-standard UK size 8, so this shift in perspective has been life-changing, he says. “Marina Rinaldi are incredible, it’s their mission to make clothes for women that fashion doesn’t consider. They gave me another point of view that I was missing, to talk to everybody, not just to an ideal.

“Today, it’s obvious to talk about inclusivity, but I think the prejudice hasn’t died; it is still present. I never design with black, but I thought maybe colour is too much on a body that is not so slim. But no, it isn’t true. Everything works for everybody.”

The designer is known for his use of bold colour and decadent fabrics – think shimmery dresses in pistachio or emerald, paired with sling backs with extravagant bows. There is an unabashed lavishness to his work, which he has skilfully reimagined for Marina Rinaldi.

For his new spring/summer 2022 capsule for the brand, a trench coat edged in cobalt blue and pink has been re-interpreted into a snappy checked jacket and skirt, while his enduring love affair with lurex appears now as a vertical striped dress in bronzed metallics, with the hem left as tendrils. There is even a fluid, crêpe cover-up in a dégradé sweep of colour. “This was very difficult because to print the fabric all over with this shade is not easy,” he admits. “We took a lot of time to work with the factories.”

Taking time to perfect a technique is typical of Marina Rinaldi, says Lynne Webber, the brand’s managing director. Cutting clothes to fit well is a highly technical process. When scaling a dress pattern up, those looking to cut corners simply make the pattern larger, but for Marina Rinaldi – and Webber – this is anathema. Instead, she insists, the pattern is re-cut for each and every dress size, as well as road-tested on models to make sure it fits, long before it goes into production. “If we do trousers, they are worn to make sure they are comfortable, and move with the body shape,” Webber explains.

This is possible because of knowledge gleaned over decades and a huge technical team that ensures every waistband, armhole, zip and pocket sits exactly where it should. It is this specialised knowledge that sets the company apart, Webber explains. “Proportion, length, pleats in the back – it’s a much more 3D process, not just a front and back. That is knowledge built up over 40 years.”

But just as crucial as it was to have the technical team involved, Webber says it was equally critical that de Vincenzo’s vision wasn’t compromised. “It is very important that the signature style of a designer is respected, because that’s an important message. We have customers come in and say: ‘Oh, I have always loved this designer, and finally I can wear it too.’ It’s extremely positive.”

For de Vincenzo, the experience has been unexpectedly rewarding. “It was a chance to think about my personal story,” he says. “My mother is now a client, but I remember as a child, shopping with her and her becoming sad because it was very difficult for her to find something beautiful but also comfortable. It was very important to me to realise that fashion today really is a universal language.

“I learnt a lot with them, and if you are a creative person, the moment you stop learning, something is wrong. When Marina Rinaldi called me, I immediately said yes because I was looking for this, even if I didn’t know it at the time.

“This is the first time since I began that I have looked at the bigger picture. I think Covid, my free time during lockdown and my Marina Rinaldi experience, have made designing very different in my mind.”

This acceptance of all body shapes and types across the fashion industry is crucial, de Vincenzo says, especially as more Gen Z-ers come of age. “I think this is the only way fashion can survive, to understand that something is changing. Those rules and codes that fashion has used for a very long time? The new generation doesn’t understand them, and they don’t care.

“I think the most successful projects of the past 10 years are the most authentic. I personally know Alessandro Michele [creative director of Gucci], as he worked with me at Fendi for two years, and it is true that everything he does comes from him; that’s why it’s such a success. The soul of the project is pure, because it is authentic. And I think fashion has the opportunity to find a new authenticity.”

For de Vincenzo, that legitimacy lies in the craftsmanship behind every piece. “A dress is just the final step, so if there is something we can do today, it is to tell the story behind the pieces. I am a factory man, and I love going to factories and meeting the people working there. It is a very magical experience for me. I think this language is unknown and it’s a pity, because it is beautiful.”

Italian know-how is still the envy of the world and the country is littered with tiny family-run factories that specialise in very specific techniques, whether working with lace, wool or woven fabrics. “Every collection, for me, starts there. I used to spend 10 days visiting these factories, and the collection would be a result of that. I never start designing from just looking at a book; for me it has to start with this experience with fabrics, because they are incredible.”

At Fendi, too, this heritage is cherished. De Vincenzo was part of the team behind the brand’s Hand in Hand exhibition in Rome, which consisted of 20 exquisite handmade Baguette handbags, each reflecting the artisanal expertise of Italy. First shown in 2020, last year there was a second iteration to showcase the famous bag Silvia Venturini Fendi designed in 1997, re-made using regional knowledge and techniques from across the country.

“To make them, we travelled to discover tiny, little factories. I visited 10 of them and met incredible people, all working the same way as their parents. And I am sure this is the perfect story to tell to younger generations. It’s fascinating.”

It is the intricate artisanal techniques, honed over generations, that make haute couture, or its Italian equivalent, alta moda, so precious. Selina Denman takes a closer look at the craftsmanship behind the creations

ARMANI

Frothy, effervescent gowns were a signature of the autumn 2021 Armani Privé collection, with ice cream hues and mercurial materials serving up a sensory overload. Dubbed Shine, the collection was a breath of fresh air in our pandemic-ridden times.

Dresses crafted from clouds of silk organza were almost holographic in their effect, creating what Giorgio Armani referred to as “halos around the body”. Look 62 consisted of a gown in patterned cloud-effect silk organza, with a bodice entirely embroidered with sequins and hundreds of crystals. This was mirrored by look 51, which paired the same effect on the skirt with a bodice covered in square sequin pavé detailing. Both dresses required 500 hours of work and 50 metres of fabric to create. For the skirts, the silk organza was laser cut in circles and then folded, before being applied individually by hand on to the base of the skirt fabric.

DOLCE & GABBANA

This decorative fabric inlay technique is a notable feature of Dolce & Gabbana’s design DNA. Born from the desire to reproduce mosaics and marble inlays, artistic references that are often present in Dolce & Gabbana’s Alta Moda and Alta Sartoria collections, this craft initially involves a careful study of the shapes and geometries of the inspirational image, which are then drawn on to the garment’s paper pattern.

Following the pattern, embroiderers assemble various pieces of fabric in different shapes and colours, creating a single, multicoloured, multidimensional effect. To make it look as close to the real thing as

possible, the choice of colour and texture for the offcuts is a crucial phase of the work. Before the final assembly, there’s a preliminary test aimed at verifying that the fabrics – lurex, lamé and brocade yarns – reach a homogeneous weight once joined together. For an even more precious and three-dimensional result, cabochons, stones and crystals are inserted all over the embroidery, as if they were set in a real mosaic mural.

The fabric inlay technique, together with many other embroidery techniques used in the Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda and Alta Sartoria ateliers, represents a unique artistic heritage and an expression of the highest skills of the master artisans.

CHRISTIAN DIOR

For the final dress of her autumn/winter 2021-22 haute couture collection for Dior, artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri tasked the craftsmen of the famed Maison Lemarié atelier to create a woodland scene using their feather embroidery. Invisible tulle was embellished with trimmed and tinted feathers to depict ferns, weeping willows and tumbling shrubs that appear to float almost untethered over the wearer.

In a technique specific to feather workers, craftspeople meticulously trim the plumage to create an effect that mimics pointillism, the artistic practise of applying small strokes or dots of colour to a surface so that from a distance they appear as if they are blended together. Nearly 40 people worked on the dress and thousands of feathers were used in the process, although the poeticism and lightness of the final product belies how complicated and time- consuming it was to create. “You get the impression that some feathers were just thrown on to this dress ... and that is the magic of haute couture,” says a spokesperson from Maison Lemarié.

BALENCIAGA

After a hiatus of 54 years, Balenciaga made its return to the haute couture stage in July 2021, under the stewardship of current artistic director Demna Gvasalia. In a fitting note of symmetry, this was the 50th haute couture collection ever to be presented by the house of Balenciaga, and consisted of a mix of men’s and women’s ready-to-wear pieces that paid tribute to Cristóbal Balenciaga’s inimitable contribution to fashion history.

His propensity to create architectural clothing that transformed the body was referenced in contemporary silhouettes crafted from a range of fabrics – from fine vicuña and vintage wools, to satins, silks and utilitarian technical fabrics. Tops and jackets featured complex corsetry or reinforced undergirding, while hand-embellished evening gowns were granted volume through minimal, strategic seams or hand-moulded padding. Structural support and purposeful draping were combined with unexpected compositions, including a cable-knit sweater reinterpreted using aluminium chain or tile-like patches mapped by a computer programme and pieced together by hand, to act as an alternative to crocodile leather.

This trompe l’oeil gown in embroidered silver silk jacquard, paired with tailored trousers in black wool and opera gloves, was directly inspired by a Cristóbal Balenciaga design from the archives.

The 200 hours of embroidery work required for the skirt and bodice were performed by Atelier Jean- Pierre Ollier, and were complemented by 300 hours of assembly work. Monsieur Jean-Pierre Ollier has been dubbed “one of those unsung heroes without whom couture would be an impossibility. His atelier in Paris is the place to go for all kinds of almost unimaginable technical trickery”.

SCHIAPARELLI

Since making its return to haute couture, the house of Schiaparelli has taken the idea of sculptural forms to new heights, in line with its Italian founder Elsa Schiaparelli’s view that “dress designing is not a profession but an art”.

Look 23 from the spring/summer 2021 collection conveys how far the lines between clothing, art and sculpture can be blurred. A trompe l’oeil gilded bust made from metalised resin is paired with a padlock necklace, custom-moulded golden brass mask jewellery and cuffs in gilded brass.

For its “sculptural body jewellery”, the house uses three main techniques. Some pieces are made through a moulding process and cast in resin. Craftspeople match real body shapes and “feel the grain of the skin”, which allows them to match the irregularities of the individual and even expressions on the face. A golden metallisation process is sometimes added into the mix, along with jewellery details in rhinestones.

Some of the pieces are more manual – metal leaves or threads are shaped to the designs, which allows for outlandish volumes and textures such as hammering. This requires an experienced hand and sometimes calls on ancient jewellery-making techniques.

Some of Schiaparelli’s sculptural body jewellery is more of a technical conception, and is crafted using 3D software and 3D printing. This allows the representation of “more perfect bodies” and a more futuristic-looking aesthetic. These pieces can also use a different metallisation liquid treatment and feel more industrial.

“All three types of sculptural designs are precious to our world to make spectacular monumental pieces,” the house explains. “All three allow us to work around body proportions or details.”

CHANEL

Tweed has been a Chanel signature since the 1920s, when Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel became the first designer to incorporate it into womenswear. It has since been reimagined in infinite ways: embellished, sequinned, woven, fringed, devoréd, torn, and mixed with denim, tulle, chiffon, lurex, lace, organza, leather, cords and ribbons.

Today, Chanel tweeds are made by the House
of Lesage, which artfully combines sophisticated assemblies of threads from a wide range of materials. The tweed is made by weaving the warp and weft, using a variety of threads to create a unique and sometimes irregular appearance. The warp – vertically strung – is the background of the fabric, the base that supports the assembly of materials. There can be up to 12 different threads used for a single warp.

The weft – woven horizontally – gives the fabric its unique character. It can have an unlimited number of threads and can be tight, perforated, textured, thick, with a relief, plaited, random or twill. As Chanel’s creative forces have proven for almost a century, the opportunities with tweed are endless.

$12,155...

... was the price that this NFT, a collaboration between Barbie and Balmain, fetched at auction. Here’s what makes it so special

Last month, Barbie partnered with French fashion label Balmain to create a doll-sized collection of ready-to-wear clothing and accessories. As part of the collaboration, the entities auctioned off three one-of- a-kind NFTs consisting of distinctive Barbie and Ken avatars decked out in Balmain.

Each NFT was accompanied by a bespoke set of physical, Barbie-sized Balmain pieces, including striped pink jumper dresses and matching mules, voluminous evening gowns, a satiny suit, oversized bags and delicate chain belts.

The NFTs were sold via an online auction hosted by mintNFT. This marked Barbie’s first foray into the digital art world, although the idea of the dolls acting as a canvas is not new. In 2020, the 62-year-old Mattel brand launched Mattel Creations, an e-commerce platform that connects Barbie with a network of global makers to produce limited-edition creations.

“Together, Barbie and Balmain are creating a new chapter in the legacy of the toy and fashion industries,” says Richard Dickson, president and chief operating officer of Mattel. “As a fashion house committed to innovation in unexpected and joyous ways, Balmain, under Olivier Rousteing’s creative direction, is the perfect partner to translate the iconography that is unique to Barbie into a modern iteration of digital art and physical fashion.”

The Barbie x Balmain limited-edition collection of 50 ready-to-wear and accessories pieces is available in stores now. Rousteing embraced Barbie’s signature shade of pink, the nostalgic 1990s-era Barbie logo and classic packaging, and combined them with the luxury label’s trademark marinière and Labyrinth patterns.

“Barbie and Balmain are embarking upon a distinctly multicultural, inclusive and always joy- filled adventure,” says Rousteing, who has been with Balmain since 2011. “For this collaboration, we are building upon the New French Style of Balmain’s most recent collections, once again showing that Balmain is inspired by the truly diverse and exciting beauty found on today’s Parisian boulevards and avenues. This collection also rejects any arbitrary gender limitations – this is an almost 100 per cent unisex collection. For, just as today’s Barbie makes clear, there’s nothing holding us back anymore.”