(Imagery via Johnnie Walker Vault and Olivier Rousteing’s May 3rd launch party)

The fashion world offers countless examples of the butterfly effect—the idea that, as meteorologist Edward Lorenz said in the 1960s, “A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil could set off a tornado in Texas.” In our industry, this happens constantly. The Olsen twins stepped out wearing Birkenstocks, and “ugly luxury shoes” became closet staples all over the globe. Princess Diana slipped into her famously sexy “Revenge dress” in June of 1994, the same day her husband, Prince Charles, admitted to adultery, creating a new chapter in royal attire and introducing the concept of a statement dress for the rest of time. 

The wings flap, the air moves, and a tornado begins to form. 

Creative Director Olivier Rousteing is the butterfly effect incarnate; someone whose very birth, followed by a series of random events, wound up disrupting the entire trillion-dollar fashion industry. 

Born to a Somali mother and Ethiopian father, Rousteing was adopted by two white parents in Bordeaux, France. “The beginning of my life was obviously different from others,” he says, recounting the adoption. Over video call, Rousteing’s face is framed by long, braided hair. Behind him (thanks to a filter) is the Johnnie Walker logo—a prelude to our forthcoming discussion on his new venture. “I grew up with incredible parents with incredible love and values,” he says. His adoptive mother was an ophthalmologist; his father worked at the local port. It was a life far removed from the Parisian runways, one that—in an alternative universe—would have seen Rousteing working the courtroom rather than the atelier. 

“They always wanted me to become a lawyer,” he says, noting that he actually attended a few months of law school, which he, perhaps surprisingly, enjoyed. “I love fighting, fighting for the best, I mean…being a lawyer is all about fighting for what you believe in. I think, basically, it’s what I’m doing in my everyday life. I treat my passion as a platform where I can express anything in my mind that I want. It’s my way of being an advocate of what I believe in.” 

While his parents didn’t fully understand this passion, Rousteing recalls he was “really insistent,” and wound up attending fashion school for a bit in Bordeaux before once again dropping out—another flap—and moving to Italy, where he climbed the ranks at Roberto Cavalli. By his early 20s, he was working at Balmain under Christophe Decarnin. In 2011, at just 25 years old, he became Creative Director—making him the youngest to lead a major Parisian house since Yves Saint Laurent, as well as one of the first Black designers to hold such a high title. 

“Let’s be clear—if you think about it, in 2011, there was not a Black designer in French luxury,” he recalls. “So I have to say, it was a big bet from the company, and I feel proud of that.” I mention the (in)famous “musical chairs” taking place amongst the major fashion houses—Jonathan Anderson at Dior Men, Demna at Gucci, Sarah Burton at Givenchy—a stark contrast to his now 14-year tenure at Balmain. “I feel like it’s such a struggle in the fashion industry,” he says. “And so I feel like the easiest choice is sometimes to change. But I think the changes can also happen inside of the designer; I mean, I went through so many different phases with my creative direction, and I know that, soon entering my 40s, I have other things to say than what I had to say when I was 20.”  

At Balmain, Rousteing quickly established his vision: a future-facing, unapologetically extravagant aesthetic that blended new world visibility with old-world decadence. His collections were heavy with embellishment, structured with sharp shoulders, and gilded in a kind of glamour that defied minimalism. Through a collaboration with H&M, for example, Rousteing democratized the label’s creativity and signature flair while still keeping an exclusive feel to the core collections. Under his guidance, Balmain transformed from a legacy house to a cultural force. The brand’s revenue soared. The menswear line exploded. And with it, so did Rousteing’s global recognition. 

But Rousteing’s influence—that aforementioned tornado—swept across the industry, sparking a digital movement that other fashion houses quickly followed. Like many milestones in his life, it began with turbulence.

“When I started my Instagram in 2012, I mean, I was definitely rejected by fashion for that,” he recalls. “Because they were like, ‘Social media is not luxury.’ I remember having those conversations because no one wanted to be on Instagram at the time.” Balmain went on to be the first luxury fashion house to reach over a million followers on the platform, thanks in no small part to Rousteing’s social media-savvy presence itself, as well as cameos from some of his closest (and most famous) friends—Beyoné, Naomi Campbell, and Rihanna, to name a few. 

Once again, Rousteing’s finger presses the “upload” icon on his iPhone’s screen, a small physical act, eventually triggering the metamorphosis of an entire industry that soon realized the infallible, inescapable, inarguable power of digital in the realm of commerce. 

Of course, I could not resist the opportunity to ask Rousteing, one of fashion’s most digitally strategic minds, about his thoughts on Artificial Intelligence.  

“I think we’re going to reach a level of technology that’s going to be so high, you feel that the new generation might want to get away from social media,” he says. “They want to have more privacy. I think there’s going to be a really strong shift in a couple of years. I think AI is such an incredible tool…But I feel like people are going to go back to magazines, go back to books. There will be a detox from cell phones.” The idea that there will be a boomerang away from social media is not a new one; in fact, people have been hypothesizing this for years. Rousteing’s belief that AI might catalyze to finally do so feels promising (V are, after all, a print publication at the end of the day). 

Continuing the caterpillar metaphor, it’s tempting to think Rousteing’s metamorphosis—his transformation into a butterfly—happened during his uphill battle at Balmain. But the flaw in comparing humans to caterpillars is this: we don’t transform just once. Our stages—larva, pupa, adult—repeat, and if we’re lucky, we emerge as different butterflies across different decades.

Perhaps Rousteing’s most significant pupa (or cocoon) phase occurred, tragically and violently, in 2020. While hosting a private dinner after his Spring/Summer 2021 show, a fireplace in his home exploded, severely burning Rousteing’s body. For months, the designer retreated, partially clouded by the COVID-19 crisis, hiding his injuries behind edited photo shoots and extremely limited and controlled public appearances. In a piece he penned for British Vogue a year later, Rousteing wrote: “The hospital gown, the soap, the towel—it hurt so much that it took all my concentration not to cry or scream.” To touch even a piece of clothing—the very things his entire life revolved around, the entire industry which he had reformed—brought him immense pain. 

A year later, he returned to full transparency and to the forefront of Balmain, continuing to pioneer the house into the mid-2020s with undeniable success. 

He also emerged with a strengthened curiosity for ventures outside of fashion. Although, for a man like Rousteing, everything always goes back to style. He wanted to create a piece of art, something that, unlike much of the fashion industry, will last not just a season or two, but several decades. This led to the collaboration with Johnnie Walker on “Couture Expressions,” a limited-edition whisky collection born from a year-long partnership between Rousteing and Master Blender Dr. Emma Walker—the first cultural collaboration launched under the new Johnnie Walker Vault platform. It is both a work of craftsmanship and a metaphor: a blend of memory, season, emotion, and form.

“What started as a collaboration to create one special release became a creative exploration of four seasons,” Rousteing explains. The four blends—Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter—each begin with the same rare “heart,” featuring ghost whiskies from closed distilleries like Port Dundas and Brora. From there, Dr. Walker and Rousteing layered in other selections from the Johnnie Walker Vault, a curated archive of 500 rare and aged whiskies. Spring is light and floral, Summer tropical and vibrant, Fall smoky and contemplative, and Winter deep, warm, and familial.

“We were tasting drinks,” Rousteing recalls of their earliest meetings. “At one point, she’s like, ‘What song do you have in mind when you drink that?’ And I realized she wanted to connect emotionally, not just technically.”

To house each blend, Rousteing collaborated with Baccarat to design crystal decanters wrapped in metallic draping—black, gold, rose gold, and silver—each representing a season. They’re more than bottles; they’re couture sculptures, each topped with gold wings. “Exactly what I wanted to create,” he says. “A sculpture… something that remains forever.”

Expanding on Johnnie Walker’s famous motto, “Keep Walking,” Rousteing notes that the wings fall in line with his own personal mantra—“We keep walking until we fly,” adding, “I always follow my dreams and I always look up to the sky because the sky is the limit,” a note of determination in his voice. 

And the chaos theory continues. Every choice Rousteing makes—every risk, every reinvention—sends ripples outward. A wing flaps, the classic silhouette shifts, a bottle is uncorked, and amidst life’s most challenging tornadoes, a butterfly, once again, takes flight.