Kanye West released his video for "Wolves" Friday, but more than a traditional music video, it's also an ad for Parisian luxury fashion house Balmain. Balmain designer sat down with Vogue to speak about the video and how it all came together.
Balmain has been slowly rolling out images from the campaign this entire week but anyone who says they saw it culminating in a full video for one of The Life of Pablo's best tracks is lying to you. The idea, according to what Rousteing told Vogue, was all his. "I called Kanye and I said I would love to create a campaign around your music, your lyrics, and your aesthetic,” Rousteing told Vogue. “I think that’s what is interesting: It is a campaign based on music." Rousteing also added that TLOP is his "favorite album ever."
The result: a full seven-minute video that features Kim Kardashian, West, Vic Mensa, Sia, Kylie Jenner and a huge cast of models, including Alessandra Ambrosio, Jordan Barrett, Ysaunny Brito, Dilone, Jourdan Dunn, Ronald Epps, Jon Kortajarena, Francisco Lachowski, Sasha Luss, Riley Montana, Josephine Skriver, Joan Smalls. Rousteing calls it "one of the most incredible campaigns I’ve ever done." It's a video clearly created by both Rousteing and West and the designer talks about how the mixing of his ideas with Kanye's resulted in the campaign/video and seeps into his own design. "Kanye has a great culture of what he thinks is cool in fashion, and I have my ideas," he said. "I think the mix of us made this jacket. Kanye loves denim, I love couture embroidery … mixing my point of view with his point of view made this jacket spectacular."
The video was shot by famous fashion photographer Steven Klein, who shot Rihanna's Dior campaign, Alexander Wang's star-studded DoSomething ads, a film with Madonna, plus a Lady Gaga commercial—he's simply done way too many campaigns, commercials, and editorials to list out fully here. The video also includes clips from Balmain's own afterparty, according to Vogue. Kardashian revealed on her app that the rest was shot after she got back from Cuba and Rousteing recreated her and Kanye's looks from the Met Gala.
Rousteing also explained to Vogue what he loves about working with West.
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