You might think that Olivier Rousteing, the bon vivant Balmain designer who is famous for gilding the lily and who never met a tassel (or a Kardashian) he didn’t like, would be the last guy to kick up his heels on a soccer field, but you would be wrong. “I love football; I played football!” he declares with unmistakably genuine enthusiasm. (Rousteing lives in Paris where, like the rest of the continent, they call soccer football, but because this is American Vogue, we are going to call it soccer. Any questions?)

This season, the designer has a more personal reason for focusing on the field—the launch of NikeLab x Olivier Rousteing: Football Nouveau, a felicitous marriage of Nike’s technically advanced materials with Rousteing’s love of dark glamour which will be available starting June 2 on nike.com/nikelab and at select NikeLab stores.

The pairing began almost a year ago, when Nike approached Rousteing about the possibility of working together, and the sleek, chic designer was thrilled. “I said yes, obviously. Nike is a great brand—more than a brand! When I was a kid, I wore Nike! I was really proud that they came to me.”

To get his biker-booted toes wet, Rousteing made his way to Nike’s legendary Northwest headquarters, an immersion in all things athletics that left him fairly stunned. “I went to Portland a year ago, a huge campus! The archive, the innovation, such a different world, a healthy world,” he says of the experience.

Like all successful collaborations, each side had to demonstrate flexibility (and not just the kind you need when there is a referee watching). “I love craftsmanship and va-va-voom,” Rousteing admits, explaining that he played with the sort of patches that you find on a uniform, and that for the sneakers, “I really wanted gold and embroidery everywhere.” Nike sobered up some of his more extravagant notions; for his part, Rousteing lent that wholesome megabrand a soupçon of Parisian mystery.

Though the clothes are more sporty than sport—pieces meant to be worn on the street, on the dance floor, and not necessary center stage at the Stade de France—the Rousteing/Nike team did show the initial results to genuine soccer players, and the designer says they were a huge hit: “It’s on the glamorous side but wearable, so even people not into sport can find things they love.”

Asked for his favorite creations from the collection, he cites “the body-con dress for the ladies—I am really proud of that,” and the crop top, because “it has a hip-hop dancer/singer feeling.” And, of course, he is not only the designer but also the line’s best advertisement: “I can’t wait to wear the hoodie for the men, with the gold piping and the gold swoosh!” Will he be donning this item when the Euro 2016 games come to town in June? “Yes, I usually do watch when it’s my French team playing. I am patriotic!”