Boloria made its debut on the eve of Paris Couture Week, and it impressed. The new house is backed by Belgian entertainment group We Are One World, the company behind the Tomorrowland electronic music festivals, and is based in Antwerp, shaped by designer Olivier Theyskens’ romantic vision, technical precision, and distinctly Belgian sensibility. The name was chosen by We Are One World rather than by Theyskens himself. Still, its backstory enchanted him, Boloria being the term ascribed to a subspecies of brush-footed butterflies first identified by entomologists in 1899. The gap between a Belgian fashion house and the world’s most famous electronic music festival as its financial backer is large enough to be interesting, and Theyskens has spent two years making sure the clothes are worth the unusual origin story.
The Collection
Theyskens set out to create a new brand that feels like it could have been around for a century or more, and he spent two years fiddling with every small detail, from the way the squared-off outsole of a women’s pump juts out just a tad, to the short, uneven, almost imperceptible rows of beads dangling from the hem of a lace skirt, with even the serif font on the clothing label carefully studied, given such academic airs you might expect it to find it etched in stone outside a library or museum.
The fashions are dignified and ultra-refined, worlds away from the festival merchandise We Are One World typically produces, which proves what dreamers the Beers truly are.
The Designer Behind It
Born in Brussels, Theyskens first emerged as one of fashion’s most celebrated young talents in the late 1990s after Madonna wore one of his designs to the 1998 Academy Awards, before going on to lead Rochas, where his romantic and highly crafted silhouettes earned critical acclaim, and later taking creative director roles at Nina Ricci in Paris and Theory in New York. He has launched and relaunched his own name multiple times across three decades, and Boloria is the most structured attempt yet, a proper house, with proper backing, and two years of preparation before a single look was shown. The project marks what the house describes as the beginning of a long-term collaboration focused on multifaceted creative endeavors, with Boloria positioning itself around values of sensitivity, integrity, and emotional resonance, qualities that have defined Theyskens’ work throughout his career. On the evidence of July 5th in Paris, those values are intact.
