Netflix releases first luxury fashion collaboration with Balmain

Netflix has teamed up with Parisian luxury house Balmain and its creative director Olivier Rousteing to create a collection for the new Western film, The Harder They Fall.

The collection, launching 3 November, coincides with the global film release of The Harder They Fall, and represents Netflix's first luxury fashion collaboration, encompassing menswear and womenswear ready-to-wear and accessories.

The films stars Idris Elba (Fast & Furious), Jonathan Majors (Loki), Zazie Beetz (Joker), Regina King (The Big Bang Theory) and LaKeith Stanfield (Get Out).

French designer Rousteing said the collection was inspired by the spirit of the groundbreaking Western film, and described it as "capable of looking just at home when worn by Balmain Army members on the avenues of Paris as it would on the all-star cast in the beautiful open spaces of the American West".

"I spent a lot of my childhood watching American Westerns. I have such great memories of sitting in front of the TV, watching the legendary films with my parents. But as the same time, many of those famous movies were tragically limited by narrow-minded prejudices of the time. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned that the Westerns of my youth projected images that were often far from the reality of the 19th-Century West. Those films, with their all-white casts, ignored an incredible history, where one third of American cowboys were black—many of them newly freed slaves who had headed west in hopes of a better life," said Rousteing, who took over at creative director of Balmain in 2011.

"You can understand why I am so happy that I was allowed to play a small part in this production. I was asked to design a few pieces, which have been masterfully integrated into the fantastic overall ambiance that the very talented Costume Director Antoinette Messam created for the film."

In addition, luxury fashion platform Farfetch will bring the collaborative collection to life by creating 3D social content for its Instagram channel, allowing fans of the film and of Balmain to experience the film sets through social media before shopping the capsule collection on its site.

"Today, we continue Pierre Balmain’s distinctive legacy of always pushing boundaries. My team and I know that fashion—even from a historic Parisian couture house like Balmain—is only made more relevant when it becomes more accessible via an integration with today’s most compelling stories and music," Rousteing added.

The news come after Netflix teamed up with Bangkok retailer, Carnival last week to offer a streetwear capsule based on this year's hottest Korean shows including survival thriller Squid Game. The tech giant also collaborated with American fashion brand, Halston, earlier this year to create a 10-piece capsule collection of gowns to celebrate its biopic release on Roy Halston Frowick, the designer who launched the fashion house in 1968.

Balmaina and Rousteing also collaborated with British broadcaster Channel 4 on drama series Fracture in August this year.

The Balmain x The Harder They Fall collection will be available online from Balmain, Farfetch and Netflix's own store, and from select retail flagships.