The fashionable child bows out! After fifty years of career, Jean Paul Gaultier announced in a short press release at the end of last week that his "grand haute couture show" this Wednesday at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris will be his "last". While promising for the future a "new project" of which he is the "instigator".
Her fashion shows are always out of the ordinary: transgressive and cheerful, they are accompanied by notes full of humor and puns to describe the outfits inspired by punks, burlesque or transgender, but always perfectly cut.
“Gender fluid” before time
Jean Paul Gaultier offered shows where he invited "different beauties" like the American pin-up Dita Von Teese or the Spanish actress Rossy de Palma to play mini-shows. "Body positive" and "gender fluid" before the time, he had men wear skirts and make-up and shaken up the elitist world of fashion with his subversive vision of beauty.
He created the revolution by being one of the first to parade senior models and overweight or tattooed women. Thus in the 1980s, he placed an ad in the newspaper Liberation : "Non-conforming creator is looking for atypical models. Broken mouths do not abstain ”.
"Provoking. It's his style ”
He is the author of creations that have become cult, such as the bustier with conical cups worn by Madonna, or her famous sailor sweater and her sailor shirts, a memory of her grandmother "who dressed her in blue". Since his first collections, Gaultier has mixed genres, sexes, eras, the banter of popular streets and the distinction of beautiful neighborhoods: chic rappers, cheeky geishas, corseted casseroles and men in skirts and high heels.
“Jean Paul Gaultier was 17 years old when he entered my home, I had launched it, I believed in it and I still believe in it. It is the only one that I have supported a little, ”Pierre Cardin recently remembered in an interview. “I am modest in my fashion, he is rather provocative. It's his style, it's already a lot, ”he added.
"The spiritual father of many couturiers"
His autobiographical show Fashion Freak show at the Folies Bergère was enormously successful in 2018 and "gave him prospects for the future," analyzes fashion historian Olivier Saillard. Jean Paul Gaultier sold his house to the Catalan group Puig in 2011 and stopped the ready-to-wear collections in 2015.
“He said that fashion has changed terribly, that he is being roughed up (…) He worked fifty years, it is not nothing, and whole decades he guided fashion. He was the spiritual father of many couturiers ”, underlines Olivier Saillard who hails the“ elegance ”of the couturier's gesture but deplores a loss for the week of haute couture. "He will continue to build appearances but in another form," he says.
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