FILE - Designer Olivier Rousteing accepts applause after the conclusion of the Balmain Fall/Winter 2023-2024 ready-to-wear collection presented Wednesday, March 1, 2023 in Paris. 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. (Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, file)

FILE - Designer Olivier Rousteing accepts applause after the conclusion of the Balmain Fall/Winter 2023-2024 ready-to-wear collection presented Wednesday, March 1, 2023 in Paris. 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. (Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, file)

Designer says robbers stole 50 items from upcoming Paris Fashion Week show

Group allegedly hijacked delivery driver, made off with clothes

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.

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The Associated Press

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