Over more than a year at Balmain, overseeing image at the scale of the entire house, the mission wasn't to produce one-off videos but to build the visual infrastructure itself : graphic identity, Heritage content, VIP output, a full show-distribution system, and the ability to turn around critical content within 48 hours. The system held through a creative director transition ; proof it never depended on a single vision, but on a structure.
EDITORIAL SYSTEM
Heritage & VIP
Two sides of the same content strategy.
Heritage builds the house's memory; VIP extends its exclusivity
Balmain's 80th anniversary called for a heritage strategy built to outlast a creative director transition. 1 brief from the CMO to build scalable content celebrating founder Pierre Balmain and the House's pillars, independent from any single creative direction.
ORGANIC VIEWS, ZERO PAID MEDIA
7 videos / 2.57M
01
Reframing house pillars
Balmain handed over a long list of potential pillars. To keep the system simple and the content effective, they were reframed against what the archive could actually support and what would hold up visually — reduced into a clearer set: architecture as the first and largest pillar, then savoir-faire on the dresses, a VIP/pop-star angle, gold, embroidery, and the monogram.
02
Content cartography
Joint work with the Archive department to map every available reference, images, sketches, press archives. Each asset tagged to serve multiple pillars at once.
03
Writing framework
Scripts built for visual rhythm, each including a hook and an outro. French voice-over paired with English on-screen text, produced with generative AI for consistency across episodes.
04
Modular production template
A locked Premiere/After Effects template controlling typography, transitions, pacing, tone, baseline and graphic system, with assets synced sentence-by-sentence to the script. Every episode built from the same structure, cutting production time by ~60% from the second episode onward.
05
Measured AI augmentation
Luma AI to animate static archive photography from the pre-video era, giving it motion without breaking the documentary tone. ElevenLabs to generate an English voiceover carrying a French accent — a deliberate choice to project a "French craftsmanship" identity, avoid dependency on an internal speaker, and keep every future episode consistent.
Architecture Video
RESULT : Content retained on official channels after the creative director transition, editorial proof it never depended on a single creative voice. Reapplied months later for the Lisa Amazing Thailand Ambassador moment, an archive parallel that performed exceptionally well.
SUB-CASE :
LISA AMAZING THAILAND AMBASSADOR
Same system, reapplied — but closer to a MET Gala moment than to a standard Heritage episode. Archive material anchored the story: a dress originally made by Pierre Balmain for Queen Sirikit, reinterpreted for Lisa's appointment as Amazing Thailand Ambassador. The script departed from the official press release, built instead around the making of the dress. Original footage, shot in-house, documented that process and was cut into a short film on the dress's conception. Photos of Lisa wearing the finished piece, sent directly by her team, were folded in at the last minute to close the edit.
INFRASTUCTURE
The show distribution system
A system structuring every show asset, from pre-production brief to final delivery.
A tracking sheet : checkbox-based, linked to SharePoint ; flagged each asset as available and routed it, with its file link,
straight to the teams and partners who needed it.
CONTENT LIST — RAW
Delivered by talents, art directors and partners: teasers, runway full looks... and a Hero Visuals Bundle :
The minimum survival package needed to update the site, banners and every other channel the moment the show ends. Each entry tracked by description, source/talent, phase, content type, show date, shoot date, date received, cleared rights, final approval, file link, recipient, notes and owner.
DELIVERABLES
The same assets reorganized or reprocessed, largely single-handed: lookbooks in print and digital by department, covers, legal deposits, seating cards, save-the-dates, TikTok content, newsletters... Then redistributed internally and to external partners. Tracked the same way, across the same fields.
PEAK MOMENT
MET Gala 2025
Views on Balmain's own account — including 40M via Jenna Ortega's repost
10M / 50M cumulative
Three ambassador films, shot in parallel by a two-person team over two weeks, following the dress creation process at every stage it could be caught. Built to the same rhythm and roughly the same length, each edit carried its own music and its own hook, giving the three a coherent identity while keeping every version distinct. Getty footage from the reveal itself was cut in the same morning and published within minutes, to land at the peak of attention.
Video 1 — Jenna Ortega
Engagement rate — 0.96%
Effectiveness — 6.37%
Engagements — 117,546
Reach — 1,844,298
Video 2 — Priyanka Chopra
Engagement rate — 1.13%
Effectiveness — 3.90%
Engagements — 139,155
Reach — 3,570,847
Video 3 — Rosalia
Engagement rate — 0.51%
Effectiveness — 3.54%
Engagements — 63,068
Reach — 1,780,893
INFRASTUCTURE
A charter for the all House
Before, each team produced its own way, missing coherence throught all touchpoints.
Two tools brought more clarity and fewer headaches : a simplified visual identity guide,
built for clarity and day-to-day use, and a set of PowerPoint templates internal teams could pick up directly. Shared globally, across every market.
