‘My City of Lights’ transports viewers into the world of Balmain on a virtual journey through the mind of its renowned creative director Olivier Rousteing.

The VR experience brings to life Rousteing’s creative process as a series of surreal and visually spectacular environments. Each space is designed to trigger a different reaction, which recreates his emotional journey – from his anxiety before starting a collection through to his elation when showcasing it on the runway.

To elevate the virtual experience, we worked directly with Rousteing and Oculus to create a unique Balmain headset; providing viewers with a luxury window into Rousteing’s impossible world.

We identified the opening of Balmain’s first Milan store as the perfect opportunity to premiere the experience. Not only was it the launch of a new flagship store, but it also coincided with Milan Design Week; creating a must-see destination during one of Europe’s biggest cultural events.

This was a specifically designed VR installation, housing a bespoke and unique VR experience, shaped around the creative inspirations of Olivier Rousteing. Built in Unreal Engine and designed to run at 60fps on an Oculus headset with bespoke hardware machine to ensure top performance. It was a tight schedule to follow and quick turnaround given the scale of the project and volume of work that was required. We managed to fit in an R&D phase, and 8 weeks worth of work into 5 weeks, including testing and install. The experience was placed in Balmains flagship store in Milan, where it was showcased seven days a week for two weeks. As part of design week it was open to the public. It gained attention in the press, received over 7.5 million + social impressions, featured in high profile publications such as Vogue.com and received approximately 100 views per day in store.

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In creating the Balmain VR experience we wanted to create something that would fully immerse users and evoke emotion. In developing this experience, which brings the user through the journey of Olivier Rousteing’s creative process, transporting you into his mind and giving you an insight into his creativity, getting to know the high profile Creative Director and brand more than ever. After an interview with the creative director we picked various key elements and representations he mentioned to symbolise and bring this process to life as you ascend through different ‘levels’ (environments).

The target audience was first and foremost visitors to the store, especially as it was planned around design week. While Influencers and journalists who cover fashion/design/technology, followers of Olivier Rousteing and his work also made up a large portion of the target audience. The approach to this was to create an experience combining the use of technology and beautiful visual environments inspired by Olivier and Balmains style. This was to be showcased at Milan Design week and mark the opening of Balmains new flagship store in Milan.

Olivier is inspired by technology and was excited by the idea of VR and use of technology. Like wise, we wanted to push the technology and explore what was possible within a VR experience. After brainstorming and an R&D phase, we found we could achieve detail and a fully immersive environment through the use of Unreal Engine to develop this VR experience. To deliver a newsworthy moment that begins to cement Balmain’s technological and intellectual leadership of the industry, while aligning with Balmains brand value of ‘inclusiveness’. To let users feel they have stepped into Oliviers imagination, giving fans of both the Balmain brand and Olivier Rousteing a window into his mind like never before while fully immersing users by creating various environments and a bespoke sound scape to accompany the visuals.