Balmainia Takes Hold Globally

Shoppers were embroiled in the kind of frenzy that makes you step back and reevaluate your place in the global order yesterday, as grown women grappled over sparkly dresses in stores across the world.Olivier Rousteing's much-hyped and long-awaited Balmain for H&M offering landed in shops and online, and promptly sold out within minutes globally - leaving many fans disgruntled and others physically wounded after bruising exchanges over the mose desirable pieces.

Rousteing - whose dominant online presence has been such a factor in the growth of the French house over recent years - faced an angry backlash from consumers left disappointed after queuing for hours in the hop of securing their favourite piece.

"I'm so hurt. I've been waiting for this forever. Been literally stressing myself out every day over this collection. My 25th birthday is Monday and it was literally all I wanted ! Extremely depressed that I couldn't get anything! Please release more!" one shopper tweeted, Racked reported, while another lamented: "I waited up even though I had a midterm and I actually skipped my exam trying to get onto the crashed site. I put a lot on the line for this. Please restock. I kid you not, I cried for an hour. I've been waiting too long for this. I'm begging you to restock."

Needless to say, not only are pieces already available on eBay with pricetags in excess of £3,000 (for that price, we think we might just invest in some Balmain mainline), but shoppers who had been lucky enough to secure their desired piece were actually seen being convinced to sell them to those still in the queue.