PFW SS15: Jean Paul Gaultier

Last night saw the swansong of a decade in Paris when the French wonder jester of fashion bid a moving farewell to ready-to-wear with all of the incroyable rumpus the designer has single-handedly purveyed since 1976. This allowed for a spectacle that also doubled as a touching flashback to the kind of fashion shows that were de rigueur when Gaultier started to take his first steps in an industry which owed more to thrills and frivolity than simplicity, street-style and models sans smile.

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Gaultier thought long and hard about how to cap off the career that’s defined him, deciding on the sensational “Élection​ de Miss Jean Paul Gaultier 2015” to galvanise the industry for one last time. With his RTW that is. So naturally, no holds were barred, especially when it came to magnitude of the collection, split into different sections that demonstrated exactly what the iconic designer is good for. Aside from more than a laugh or two, he entitled us to the best of the best, opening the show with a clique of high society ladies gone monochrome mad in chic dress suits, then proceeding to doll up previous Glass cover girl Magdalena Jasek as Grace Coddington and Lindsey Wixson as Suzy Menkes in the most overt ode to fashion ever made.

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Moving on the designer played with many a varying theme, from the trailer park Southern Belle, tottering down the catwalk with backcombed hair shamelessly snapping selfies, to fashion’s grande dame arm in arm with muscled toy boy and even the Mexican wrestler in all of her fierce glory. Proof that though his ready-to-wear reach won’t be as predominant, he’ll never fall out of touch with fashions whims because he can be just as wild, if not more. For the purposes of SS15, already sure to be one of his most collectable collections, he did produce a number of pieces that will probably see the most wear, from Miss Jean Paul Gaultier 2015 pageant winner, Coco Rocha, in a negligée-cum-spacesuit hybrid of his classic bustier dress and other bipolar plays on male and female dress conveyed through asymmetrical deconstructed suits.

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This show was undeniably a celebration of the full-frontal femininity Gaultier has been celebrating for nearly 40 years now, and thanks to his continued couture output, will continue to revel in for what we hope to be many more years. SS15, this enfant terrible’s final RTW bow, wasn’t strictly about the clothes, but Gaultier has never been just about the clothes, despite how fabulous they have always been this designer is a weaver of whimsy. Many a young designer could certainly learn a thing or two from that these days if they want to sell fashion with a capital F.

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For now though, we say au revoir to JPG, wipe away a single tear as we give thanks for the joy he’s given us, and finally, start counting down the days to his next couture show in January, ready-to-wear’s loss is by all means haute couture’s gain.

by Liam Feltham

Images courtesy of Style.com

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