Jean Paul Gaultier is one of the few designers who always smiles. For the last 50 years, that grin – cheeky, coquettish, full of personality – has illuminated the fashion space, cutting through the very serious, often very somber catwalks of couture. Unlike his peers – all formidable couturiers in their own right – the smiling Gaultier has never taken himself too seriously. When he talks, particularity about his craft, he pings with enthusiasm, exuberance, joy. At 67, he has an ineffable boyishness difficult to quantify, a sparkle, if you will.
Over the last five decades he honed a brand of high camp that was both progressive and avant-garde, scandalous yet lighthearted. And despite his sense of humor, it was never wishy-washy. His tailoring cut like a knife, his tuxedos so sublime comparisons to Yves Saint Laurent were rife. And then of course the nudity came-a-knocking. A fascination with the state of déshabillé consumed him; his love for negligee (and lack thereof) culminating in one of the most defining moments in fashion history: Madonna’s infamous conical boobs, a look he contrived for her 1990 Blonde Ambition tour (and one first executed in his Fall / Winter 1984 collection).
Madonna continued to play muse, as did her breasts, which again took center stage at the Jean Paul Gaultier runway show benefit for APLA in L.A. in 1993. Their partnership was just one example of a prevailing prevalence in pop culture, Gaultier often leaning on his famous friends for a little fashion fancy. Then, of course, the costumes he designed for cult 1997 movie, The Fifth Element, Milla Jovovich’s iconic cage-like design forever etched in our film consciousness.
His longevity in a fickle industry fascinated by the new and the now is testament not only to his character – warm, determined, driven – but also his aptitude for reinvention and adaptation. Tapping into the zeitgeist-y mood of an era, his ability to evolve in this way was remarkable. But his couture was not meant to stimulate sales (although he was very good at it), but rather for the sole purpose of creative provocation. He was a creative, after all; he built his decadent world of design and imbued in it the kind of dissolution we all loved – and craved – an antidote to the drabness of life.
While fragrance and ready-to-wear will always be of paramount significance to the Gaultier brand (and will live on), his baguette and butter was always couture – a playground where he could live out his wildest fantasies. And which he did, enrapturing the world for some five decades with conical bras to poke eyes out, deconstructed Breton stripes, sailor hats and fetishwear. Forever a disruptor, he challenged norms from the get-go, constructing his own kind of rules – or lack thereof – as he went. One of the first designers to embrace the fuller form on runways and challenge traditional gender roles, he put men in skirts, and women in suits; it was scandalous, brilliant stuff.
His final show at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris was, as expected, the most stupendous, self-referential spectacle. 50 years of couture crammed into one finale is difficult enough, let alone the kind of couture Monsieur Gaultier crafted.
As always, it was a lesson in delirious excess. It was gloriously vulgar and yet beautifully refined all the same. It was rampant and energetic and fretting and wild, a distinct lack of restraint at every turn. There were icons, titans and tits – plenty of them, of course. There was even a blow-up doll-cum-model dedicated to Madonna’s famous conical boobs, one last jest at the era-defining moment. In true Gaultier style, it began as a kind of tongue-in-cheek funeral and ended in a party with Boy George singing and a live orchestra. All the hype, all the madness, all the fantasy: a spectacle so great it would be all but impossible to unpack.
A fitting and most importantly fabulous farewell to one the most impactful haute couture designers of generation after generation: to couture’s greatest extrovert – and fashion’s best smile – merci for a magnificent 50 years in haute couture.
PARIS, FRANCE – JANUARY 22: Jean Paul Gaultier (C) walks the runway during the Jean-Paul Gaultier Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2020 show as part of Paris Fashion Week at Theatre Du Chatelet on January 22, 2020 in Paris, France. (Photo by Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
