Jean-Paul Gaultier

Gaultier never received formal training as a designer. Instead, he started sending sketches to famous couture stylists at an early age. Pierre Cardin was impressed by his talent and hired him as an assistant in 1970. His first individual collection was released in 1976 and his characteristic irreverent style dates from 1981, and he has long been known as the enfant terrible (bad boy) of French fashion. Many of Gaultier's following collections have been based on street wear, focusing on popular culture, whereas others, particularly his Haute Couture collections, are very formal yet at the same time unusual and playful. He popularized the use of skirts, especially kilts on men's wardrobe, and the release of designer collections. Gaultier caused shock by using unconventional models for his exhibitions, like old and fat women, pierced and heavy tattooed models, and by playing with traditional gender roles in the shows. This granted him both criticism and enormous popularity.

Gaultier also designed the wardrobe of many motions pictures, including Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, Pedro Almod var's Kika, Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's La Cit des enfants perdus (The City of Lost Children). Madonna's Blond Ambition Tour (including the iconic cone bra) also featured his creations. He currently designs for three collections: his own couture and ready-to-wear lines, as well as the newly relaunched clothing line for Hermes, a French leather goods company well-known for their equestrian background, scarves, and expensive and difficult to obtain handbags.

Gaultier also co-presented the first six series of Eurotrash.

External links

Official Jean-Paul Gaultier Site

Jean-Paul Gaultier Collections

Jean-Paul Gaultier Fall Fashions

Jean-Paul Gaultier Fashion Week

Jean-Paul Gaultier News

Jean-Paul Gaultier Profiles

Jean-Paul Gaultier Runway

Jean-Paul Gaultier Spring Fashions

If you are interested in learning about another designer that has the first name Jean, you can read about Jean Patou (which happens to be another French fashion designer)

Self-Taught, and Hired on Sketches

Gaultier's entry into fashion had no school in it. He never received formal training as a designer; instead, from an early age he sent sketches to famous couture stylists, and Pierre Cardin was impressed by his talent and hired him as an assistant in 1970, when Gaultier was eighteen. That route matters because it means his education happened inside working houses, watching clothes being made for clients, rather than in a classroom. His first individual collection followed in 1976, six years after the Cardin appointment, and his characteristic irreverent style is dated from 1981. The dates sketch a conventional enough apprenticeship — assistant at eighteen, own collection at twenty-four — underneath a reputation that is anything but conventional.

Street Wear, Gender and the Enfant Terrible

The reputation has a name: he has long been known as the enfant terrible, the bad boy, of French fashion. The work behind the label is described on two tracks that he ran simultaneously. Many of his collections were based on street wear, focusing on popular culture, while others, particularly his Haute Couture collections, were very formal yet at the same time unusual and playful. Running both is the point: he did not abandon couture for the street or use the street as a junior line, but treated popular culture as material worthy of the highest level of French dressmaking. Two specific provocations are named. He popularized the use of skirts, especially kilts, in men's wardrobes, and he caused shock by using unconventional models — old and fat women, pierced and heavily tattooed models — and by playing with traditional gender roles in his shows. The result was both criticism and enormous popularity, which is the usual arithmetic of provocation in fashion: the same gesture that offends one audience advertises the designer to another. The skirt for men is the clearest example, because it is a garment-level change rather than a styling trick — it asks who a whole category of clothing is for.

Film, Madonna and Three Collections

His design work reached its widest audience outside the runway. He designed the wardrobe for many motion pictures, including Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, Pedro Almodovar's Kika, Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's The City of Lost Children — a list of directors known for highly visual films, in which costume carries a large part of the world-building. Madonna's Blond Ambition Tour also featured his creations, including the iconic cone bra, the single garment most associated with his name: a piece of underwear construction worn as outerwear on a concert stage, which combined his interests in gender, underwear as clothing and spectacle in one object. At the time described he designed for three collections at once: his own couture line, his own ready-to-wear line, and the newly relaunched clothing line for Hermes, the French leather goods house known for its equestrian background, scarves and expensive handbags. Designing for Hermes alongside his own irreverent label is the sharpest statement of his range — the bad boy of French fashion simultaneously employed by its most traditional luxury house. He also worked in television, co-presenting the first six series of Eurotrash.