Balmain x L'Oréal Lipsticks Are Here & We Want Them All

Brace yourself for more #Balmania. This morning, Balmain and L’Oréal Paris announced the exciting details of their collaborative capsule collection of 12 brand-new shades for the beauty brand’s bestselling lipstick range, Color Riche.

Under creative director Olivier Rousteing’s vision, Balmain has been transformed into a hard-edged glamorous fashion house, all body-conscious shapes and hyper-embellishment. Every inch a celebrity-endorsed brand, Rousteing’s army of Balmain girls is fierce, sexy and bold – and the designer has brought them to the L'Oréal collaboration. Storming the rooftops of Paris at dawn, the campaign features 12 diverse women, alongside Rousteing, "sending a message of female empowerment".

Shot by photographer Nico Bustos, the models represent three tribes of L’Oréal Paris x Balmain Paris femininity: Rock, Couture and Glamazone. Each story is told in four shades, designed for every complexion – Rock woman Soo Joo Park voices Freedom in blue attire, Doutzen Kroes wearing Confidence embodies Couture in classic black, with Glamazone Ysaunny Brito repping Instinct in bronze pieces.

An important aspect for Rousteing was developing a range of shades for a variety of skin tones. "One thing that always bothered me about fashion is its history of exclusion and its restricted definition of what is 'beauty'," he explains. "There is an amazing reservoir of beauty inside each and every one of us. Today, things are changing for the better. We know things can be different. No matter what your origin, colour, gender, preference – whatever – we are truly invincible – and, we are all worth it!"

This drop marks Rousteing’s first foray into makeup, following a successful haircare line and broad fragrance collection. We anticipate that his celebrity (and lipstick-loving) clique, including Kim Kardashian, Kylie and Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid and Jourdan Dunn, will be among the first to sport the products. Released 1st September – perfect timing for Paris Fashion Week – the line will be available at all L’Oréal Paris stockists, and in store and online at Harvey Nichols, with an exclusive ‘jewel edition’ lipstick sold in Balmain stores.

With one Color Riche lipstick sold every three seconds globally, this collaboration aims to bring high fashion aesthetics to a wider market. "L'Oréal Paris and Balmain Paris share the same vision of beauty diversity that now reaches a larger audience thanks to this first designer collection of the world's #1 lipstick: Color Riche," notes Pierre-Emmanuel Angeloglou, global brand president at L'Oréal Paris.

This isn’t the first high street collaboration on which the 31-year-old creative director has embarked with Balmain: in 2015, the faux fur and sequin-heavy collection for H&M sold out instantly, showing the mass appeal of Rousteing’s aesthetic for the brand, and the influence and power that celebrity endorsement really has over our shopping habits.

With names like "Confidence", "Domination" and "Liberation", the campaign – and indeed the collaboration – focuses on female empowerment. "The tagline says it all: 'United, We Are Invincible'. Season after season, Balmain has highlighted the strengths of the confident, modern, assertive woman. This collaboration reflects those strengths and rebellious, glamorous spirit of those strong, impressive women," says Rousteing. That's the kind of beauty message we can get behind. Now excuse us while we work out which shades we'll be purchasing.