Kanye West returns to Balmain for 2016 campaign

Kanye West has returned to Balmain as the star of creative director Olivier Rousteing's new campaign.

The rapper, who featured in Balmain's menswear spring 2015 campaign alongside his wife Kim Kardashian, appears in a new teaser for the latest concept, which also stars Rousteing favourite Joan Smalls.

Photographed by Steven Klein, Kanye appears to be wearing a beaded jacket and distressed jeans, similar to the look he wore to this year's Met Gala in New York, where he also sported sky blue-coloured contact lenses.

In the teaser ad, West falls backwards as a dramatic and windswept Smalls attempts to come to his rescue.

Announcing Kanye and Smalls as the stars of his latest Balmain campaign, Rousteing tweets: "THE #BALMAINARMY IS BACK Starring #KanyeWest and #JoanSmalls."

They join the likes of Justin Bieber, Kardashian and her sisters Kylie and Kendall Jenner, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, and Claudia Schiffer as official members of Rousteing's 'Balmain Army'.

Rousteing is a big fan of Kanye's and recently told Hypebeast.com he has a great deal of "love and respect" for the rapper's fashion vision.

"I love Yeezy. I wear Yeezy. You know what I love about him? It's that he can create so much tension and power at the same time. It's insane!" Olivier said. "I went to his show in Madison Square Garden and I was just like, 'Wow! This is fashion'.

"In one live moment, there were 20,000 (people) surrounding his clothes, while launching a new album, The Life of Pablo, dressing everybody in Yeezy. This is the dream of every designer. You might not do the same clothes as he does, but just imagine having all of these people and TVs around your show.

"You sit back and you're just like, 'You are a f**king god because you made this happen'."