The Night Balmain Transformed Leigh-Anne Pinnock Into Queen Of The Pride Lands

“So,” said Leigh-Anne Pinnock when she debuted on the X Factor in 2011. “I work at Pizza Hut. But I want to be a pop icon.” Then 19, the aspiring musician was dressed in a slogan vest, old-man braces, khaki shorts and bright-red combat boots. A relic of the River Island-dominated 2010s, Pinnock’s entrance look would prove less of an aesthetic crime than all the poodle dresses, leg warmers and patent high-tops that Little Mix would endure before winning the competition and graduating to custom Maison Margiela at the 2021 Brits. “I see you in a girl band,” judge Kelly Rowland said during that first audition. “I don’t know if I necessarily see you as a solo artist… yet.”

Fast forward 13 years and Pinnock – now a successful soloist with a string of Little Mix hits in the bank – performed before 5,000 people last night as part of a 30-year celebration of The Lion King at the Royal Albert Hall. (The High Wycombe girl realising her dreams of pop superstardom could feasibly inspire the plot of a 21st-century Disney film.) “My jaw dropped when I first received the invite,” she says, dialling in from the back of a cab after a long day of rehearsals earlier this week. “I can’t quite believe that I’ll be singing ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’. Oh God, it’s such an iconic song and I hope I can do it justice.” Two Balmain Haute Couture dresses – statuesque and animalistic – helped Pinnock keep her nerves at bay. “I’ve worn Balmain a couple times before and I’ve always admired Olivier Rousteing’s work. I can’t wait to meet him tonight and start a long-lasting relationship.”

Both looks were plucked from a limited-edition collection that Balmain and Disney produced to mark 30 years of The Lion King. There are hourglass dresses constructed with pelts of gold-dipped raffia and crystal-embroidered gowns with floor-length fringing. A series of trench coats and jersey sheaths have been printed with the works of South African painters Nika Mtwana and Cassius Khumalo and the Cameroonian artist Enfant Précoce in a celebration of pan-African creativity (Rousteing is increasingly using fashion as a means to explore his roots since discovering his birth parents were from Somalia and Ethiopia in 2019). The designs chime perfectly with Pinnock’s dynamic blend of R&B, amapiano, garage and Afrobeats.