Jean Paul Gaultier

Jean Paul Gaultier is the enfant terrible, a household name known for defying all expectation in the face of French fashion for 50 frolicking years. But before all the fame, he was a Parisian schoolboy, secretly sketching his favourite cabaret characters, all feathers and fishnets, at the Folies Bergere, which he saw on television the night before.

“My teacher caught me doing it and to punish me made me do a tour of classes with the drawing pinned to my back,” he recalls. “But the reaction was exactly the opposite of what I expected – instead of making fun of me, my classmates asked me to draw for them. This is how I understood that I could be loved through my work.”

While it was the Paris Frills (Falbalas) film that crystallised his desire to work in fashion, this proved to be a seminal moment for the young creative, who was hired as an intern by the avant- garde designer Pierre Cardin based off his sketches alone on his eighteenth birthday. Mesmerised by his after school work, he failed his exams for the sake of style.

Jean Paul went on to hone his craft at Jacques Esterel and Patou, before returning to Pierre Cardin in 1974. Having developed a singual style he released a debut collection under his name two years later. In 1982, he officially opened his own design house, then debuted a couture collection in 1997.

“This is how I understood that I could be loved
through my work.”

The visionary challenged the very premise of the fashion industry by juxtaposing street style with haute couture. Defying convention, and earning his affectionate nickname, he proactively paired masculine looks like broad- shouldered jackets and baggy pants with feminine corsetry and lingerie. His thematic expression of his obsessions, from sailors to star signs, revealed it all in a spectacular fashion show each season.

While he was making great strides in the industry, including a seven-year tenure at Hermès from 2003, Jean Paul sought a bigger stage. He became fashion’s pop culture frontman after designing Madonna’s sensational conical bras and basques for her Blond Ambition tour of 1990. “We made a baby together,” Jean Paul says of his bold start with the singer, who is now a long-time collaborator. “It was the mixing of the clothes, the design and Madonna on stage herself. That is what made it so iconic.”

As one of fashion’s most innovative, Jean Paul crosses over many mediums. He’s designed wardrobes for films, including a thousand futuristic get-ups for the inimitable The Fifth Element, and was appointed Diet Coke’s creative director in 2012, designing limited-edition bottles in the same vein as his collectable figure-shaped fragrance bottles. Not one to take himself too seriously, he was also a co-presenter of the late-night comedy review TV show Eurotrash. The dramatic designer then decided to focus his attention on couture in 2014, shuttering the ready-to-wear arm of his business at the same time.

Jean Paul has loved the art of the theatre and ballet ever since his grandmother took him to see his first show The Christmas Rose at the Theatre de Châtelet – “there was a bed on stage and suddenly it started flying... I was hooked forever.”

“Sensuality is at the heart of my design ethos.”

The thespian has since worked with leading contemporary ballet choreographer Angelin Preljocaj for Snow White (Blanche Neige). The visually ravishing fairy tale inspired by the Grimm brothers has toured the world with sold-out seasons. Now the ballet as deliciously dark as a poison apple is premiering in New Zealand at the Auckland Arts Festival in March.

His favourite character to dress was the strong and sensual female lead – a pure but sexy Snow White in see-through crinoline skirts and barely-there ivory gowns. “Sensuality is at the heart of my design ethos.”

Known for his stylistic consistency, Jean Paul’s costumes capturing the alluring archetypes of good and evil are as influenced by his fashion collections and codes as any of his designs, while an added element of close collaboration helped his ballerinas leap and the story to soar. “When I work with a choreographer for a ballet or a director for a film, I try to do Gaultier but in their service,” he explains. “It should perfectly follow their story but still be recognisable as my work.”

Following his initial design work for the ballet, Jean Paul decided to put on his own all-singing, all-dancing Fashion Freak Show to tell his larger-than-life story. The well-dressed musical prances through its maestro’s major stages, from making bras for his teddy as a child to wild parties as a design prodigy at Le Palace. “I wanted to have a story in it and which story do I know best? My own.”

The same philosophy applied to his final haute couture show for spring 2020, after it was announced Jean Paul Gaultier’s couture will go on without him under a new concept. In front of a packed-out Parisian crowd of critics and fans alike, the 67-year-old sent 250 remastered classics down the runway, modelled by a troupe of famous friends. It was a full-circle moment for fashion’s greatest showman, held at the same storied playhouse where he saw his first ballet, the Theatre de Chatelet. ■

For more: The best moments from Jean Paul Gaultier’s final haute couture show on FQ.co.nz.