Gigi Hadid Gives A Denim Skirt Illusion In A Perfect Balmain Dress

And now it’s out. About a week after the Met Gala, Balmain creative director Olivier Rousteing posted a new look to Instagram. “A Saturday morning with my Balmain family to the atelier,” he wrote. “Ready for new Balmain pieces?” The look was a beaded trompe-l’oeil dress, a technique that Rousteing has been using increasingly. Featuring a sharp shoulder and protruding hips that mirrored that sharpness, the long sleeved mini dress features a top half intended to resemble a nude torso and a bottom half resembling a denim skirt. And then, within weeks, it had its official debut in the Balmain Resort 2024 collection.

That was the beginning of this month but three weeks later, Gigi Hadid has debuted it on the celebrity circuit. Heading to Maxim’s, a restaurant that is a cultural institution in Paris, for an after-party fresh off closing the Vogue World show, the supermodel was the embodiment of chic with an undeniably cool edge. The structured piece showed off her legs and she paired it with a pair of simple shades, Balmain’s black patent leather B-Buzz Dynasty bag, and the Balmain Eva kitten heel which is a slingback style. The footwear silhouette was trending at Cannes last month.

The 29-year-old’s look is just the latest to incorporate a heavily beaded, illusion effect from the always busy Rousteing. At the Met Gala, he put Tyla in a gown that was a sand illusion, before handcutting the train off with scissors to transition it to an after party look. Along with the nude illusion in Hadid’s look, it feels like the designer is still finding inspiration in the Jean Paul Gaultier archives (which Rousteing did during his in-house residency at the brand in 2022). The resort collection also included a full-body version of Hadid’s look Including the high neck but instead of a denim skirt, it was a fully nude body that disintegrated into fringe. The effect was also incorporated into the fall 2024 menswear collection earlier this year.

The minidress wasn’t Hadid’s first Balmain look of the day though: the model closed the Vogue World fashion show in a custom look from the French brand featuring a billowing blue skirt and an armor-like draped gold bustier. Rousteing called it “a dress for a modern goddess.”