He has been at the head of the Balmain house since 2011, is known for his flashy fashion and is very close to the influential Kardashian family. At only 38 years old, Olivier Rousteing is today a reference in the world of fashion. So much so that he posed for the latest cover of the French edition of
GQ
magazine . The opportunity for the designer from Bordeaux to speak exclusively about his adoptive parents during an interview. “I always thought my parents were going to take me back to the orphanage,” he explains when asked where his taste for extremes comes from. And to continue: “I have always tried to live each day with my parents as if it were the last, telling myself: if they are disappointed with the child they adopted, I would at least have been happy with them until the last minute.”
Celebrities at the Balmain fashion show
In images, in pictures
See the slideshow09 photos
See the slideshow09 photos
“I am probably the result of rape”
Confidences that take us back to 2019, the year when he was the subject of the documentary
Wonder Boy, Olivier Rousteing, born under X
, in which he went in search of his biological parents. The fight of a life, on which he returns in the columns of
GQ:
“I was born in Bordeaux to Ethiopian and Somali parents… I discovered that my biological mother had me at fourteen and that I am surely the result of rape, so my biological father is not a person to meet,” he relates. Before specifying: “I found my biological mother but she did not deign to meet me. So this chapter is a stand-by in my life.”
From now on, Olivier Rousteing is a more mature, more calmer man. We see this in the interview when he broaches the subject of love. “I don't want to be in love because I don't want to be distracted from the path I'm creating for myself. If I fell in love tomorrow, I would be in the extreme and I would be able to give up everything. I prefer not to fall in love and I force myself not to meet anyone… It’s easy to run away from love,” he says. A philosophy of life which allows him, according to him, to be closer to what makes him tick: his work and his family. “My family understands and wants us to spend more time together. It’s more important than introducing them to someone,” admits the designer while specifying that he ensures that his personal life takes up more space in his daily life. Reason why, according to him, Balmain is today a family that he has built for himself: “You can build a business by building a family, one does not prevent the other.”