Balmain Designer Says Robbers Made off with 50 Items for His Upcoming Paris Fashion Week Show

Models present creations by designer Olivier Rousteing as part of his Spring-Summer 2023 ready-to-wear collection show for fashion house Balmain during Paris Fashion Week in Paris, France, September 28, 2022. (Reuters)
Models present creations by designer Olivier Rousteing as part of his Spring-Summer 2023 ready-to-wear collection show for fashion house Balmain during Paris Fashion Week in Paris, France, September 28, 2022. (Reuters)
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Balmain Designer Says Robbers Made off with 50 Items for His Upcoming Paris Fashion Week Show

Models present creations by designer Olivier Rousteing as part of his Spring-Summer 2023 ready-to-wear collection show for fashion house Balmain during Paris Fashion Week in Paris, France, September 28, 2022. (Reuters)
Models present creations by designer Olivier Rousteing as part of his Spring-Summer 2023 ready-to-wear collection show for fashion house Balmain during Paris Fashion Week in Paris, France, September 28, 2022. (Reuters)

Balmain artistic director Olivier Rousteing says robbers have made off with more than 50 pieces of the new collection that his Paris house intends to show at Fashion Week later this month.

Posting overnight Sunday on Instagram, Rousteing said a group of people hijacked his delivery driver on the way from an airport to Balmain's Paris headquarters. He said they made off with the last pieces he'd been expecting for the Sept. 27 womenswear show — more than 50 items in all. He didn't detail the pieces.

"Our delivery was hijacked," he wrote. "Thank God, the driver is safe."

"So many people worked so hard to make this collection," he added. "We are redoing everything but this is so so disrespectful."

"We won’t give up."

He didn't specify which airport the delivery driver was coming from. Paris has two main international airports. Rousteing wrote that he'd been waiting in his office Saturday morning when "our driver called us and said that he was hijacked by a group of people."

"This is so unfair. My team and I worked so hard," he wrote. "We will work more, days and nights. Our suppliers will work days and night as well."

Paris police directed Associated Press questions to prosecutors who couldn't immediately be reached for comment on the weekend.



H&M Abandons 2024 Earnings Margin Target, Q3 Profit Lags

People walk past a closed H&M clothing store in Omsk, Russia, March 3, 2022. REUTERS/Alexey Malgavko
People walk past a closed H&M clothing store in Omsk, Russia, March 3, 2022. REUTERS/Alexey Malgavko
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H&M Abandons 2024 Earnings Margin Target, Q3 Profit Lags

People walk past a closed H&M clothing store in Omsk, Russia, March 3, 2022. REUTERS/Alexey Malgavko
People walk past a closed H&M clothing store in Omsk, Russia, March 3, 2022. REUTERS/Alexey Malgavko

H&M, the world's second-largest listed fashion retailer, said on Thursday it no longer expected to reach its full-year earnings margin goal, while reporting a lower-than-expected operating profit for the June-August period.

H&M has struggled to boost its profitability amid high inflation and stiff competition from its bigger Spanish rival Zara, owned by Inditex, and the rapid growth of cut-price online fast-fashion retailer Shein.

"At present we estimate that this year's operating margin will be lower than 10%," Chief Executive Daniel Erver said in a statement.

The accumulated margin stood 7.4% for the first three quarters.

The full-year operating margins for 2022 and 2023 were 3.2% and 6.2% respectively, and H&M had cautioned in June that factors such as materials costs and foreign currency had made the 2024 target more difficult to reach.