The China Mail - Star designer Rousteing quits fashion group Balmain

Rousteing was the first black designer to lead a major Paris fashion house and is credited with helping make luxury fashion more accessible, recruiting Kim Kardashian as one of the label's best-known faces.

"I arrived when I was 24 (as a designer in 2009) with my eyes wide open and the determination to persevere always," the 40-year-old said on Instagram.

He was promoted to creative director two years later.

"I am leaving Balmain with my eyes still wide open -- open to the future and to the beautiful adventures to come."

Rousteing gave no details of his future plans.

He thanked his colleagues and "all the people who believed in me from the start".

Rousteing's "visionary leadership not only redefined the boundaries of fashion but also inspired a generation", said Rachid Mohamed Rachid, chief executive of Balmain's owner, the Qatari investment fund Mayhoola, in a statement.

Balmain's managing director Matteo Sgarbossa said Rousteing's "passion over recent years will leave an indelible mark on the history of fashion".

- Jet-set fashion label -

Rousteing is credited with transforming Balmain from an exclusive club to a must-have label for the global jet-set, drawing in top models, athletes and stars such as his friend Kardashian.

He was one of the first in the business to "openly admire both Kim Kardashian, who at the time was not a standard fashion figure, and pop culture, which some people judged as rather vulgar", said Serge Carreira, a fashion expert at Paris's Sciences Po university.

Hip-hop music rang out at Rousteing's shows, seen as showcases of diversity, and the designer was not above collaborating with the likes of high-street retailer H&M as he brought fashion to a younger, less exclusive public.

His designs promoted a glamorous aesthetic credited with expressing strength and independence for women -- and overturned masculine stereotypes with low necklines and sequins for men.

Rousteing's work made him a star in his own right, with nearly 10 million followers on Instagram and cameras following him on the red carpet and in the front row of fashion shows.

Adopted at birth and raised by a family in the southern French city of Bordeaux, Rousteing went in search of his biological parents, a quest documented in a 2019 Netflix documentary.

In 2021 he revealed that he had been seriously burnt when a gas fireplace exploded at his home in Paris the year before, posting photographs of himself in bandages.

He said he had kept the accident secret out of "shame" in a fashion world obsessed by "perfection".

Balmain said it would announce its new artistic team "soon".

F.Brown--ThChM