‘The White Lotus’ Star Leslie Bibb Attends Her First Fashion Show for Balmain at Paris Fashion Week
Leslie Bibb’s fashion week debut at Balmain was long in the making.
During the filming of Season One of the hit Apple show “Palm Royale,” roughly two years ago, Bibb was being fitted for a gown for the finale episode, the big “beach ball” scene.
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“We found a dress, and it was a vintage Christian Dior dress. It was bananas,” Bibb says. The gown, which was from the late ’60s, needed to be tailored as it was several sizes too big. The day before shooting Bibb had her fitting, and during the alterations things went astray.
“It was destroyed,” Bibb says. The show’s costume designer, Alix Friedberg, sprung to action and soon enough there was a knock at Bibb’s trailer door. Friedberg presented a silk peach gown that inside was signed by Pierre Balmain.
“It was from 1969 and had been worn once. I feel like it was probably made for this person to wear, and it was the dress that I wore and it fit me perfectly,” Bibb recalls.
So when she got the invitation to come to Balmain’s show during Paris Fashion Week — which was the first runway show she’s attended — it felt like a true full-circle moment.
“I just feel so lucky,” Bibb says. “It sounds so corny, but I do, it’s not lost on me, everything right now.”
The “White Lotus” star, who flew to Paris hours after attending Vanity Fair’s Oscar Party on Sunday in L.A., had chosen a pair of black pants, a black sheer jacket with shoulder pads and a leather tassel belt, and black and gold chain heels for the Balmain show.
“When I put it on, I was like, ‘oh, well, this is it. It’s really easy,’” Bibb says. “The pants are very comfortable, but the construction of it is so well made and so beautiful that you just feel strong. I feel strong and I feel powerful and I feel sexy, and it’s a suit, but it’s feminine, but still masculine, but very feminine. I just loved it.”
Her one other stop in Paris was a Roger Vivier event, to which she’ll also wear Balmain — this time, black leather pants and a black leather jacket with gold buttons.
Bibb is starring alongside Carrie Coon and Michelle Monaghan in the third season of “The White Lotus,” Episode Three of which premiered on March 2. Since premiering, the episode’s most-talked about scene has been her character Kate’s admission to being a churchgoer and possible Trump voter. While at the Vanity Fair party people hadn’t seen the episode yet, since then Bibb has gathered from online chatter how much discussion there is around the scene.
“Mike [White, the show’s creator] writes scenes that are provocative and confronting. And what I find so interesting, especially that scene, is that he wrote it in 2022…and so I then start to marvel at Mike White somehow having this uncanny ability to have his thumb on the pulse of the world in a way, and just know what’s going to be in the zeitgeist,” Bibb says. “I remember when we were filming it, even in 2024, I was like, ‘oh, is this going to be relevant?’ I remember Michelle and Carrie and I talking and going, ‘oh god, I wonder if this dates the show in a way, because it wasn’t relevant.’ But I think the bigger relevancy is Mike’s commentary about how you love friends when they have different opinions that are different than yours, and what that means in a friendship.
“At first, when you look at those three women, you think, ‘oh, OK. I know who they are.’ But then with each episode, you start to peel back the layers and you start to see in true Mike White fashion, it’s not what they’re saying,” Bibb says. “It’s what they’re not saying.”
Launch Gallery: Getting Ready for Balmain's Fall 2025 Show With Leslie Bibb
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