Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Designer Jean Paul Gaultier Biography
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. Jean-Paul Gaultier produced sculptured costumes for Madonna during the nineties and has also worked in close collboration with Wolford Hosiery. He promoted 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 older men and full-figured women, pierced and heavily tattooed models, and by playing with traditional gender roles in the shows. This granted him both criticism and enormous popularity.
Jean-Paul Gaultier is a gleefully outrageous designer, a man who habitually defies or ignores the standard definitions of style and sensibility. He has brought kitsch into the mainstream of Couture, along with fetishism, male cross-dressing, and any number of other wild and innovative concepts.
Gaultier finds his inspiration on the streets. More precisely, he finds it down the alleys, at the underground parties, and in the hallucinogenic factories that produce the fantasy of urban life. He blends these trends with styles from past eras, often using Victorian gowns and French sailor stripes as motifs. While other designers offer censored versions of the times, Gaultier presents an NC-17 variation on reality.
In the mid-1980s, Gaultier rekindled public interest in designer Couture with his inspired men's collections. In 1985, he shocked the world with his red-lace and leather collection. The women wore red lace and black leather chaps -- complete with cut-outs for the buttocks. The men sported platform shoes, feathers, and naked chests. Since then, the designer has introduced space helmets, metal breastplates, men's skirts, and the notorious cone bra made famous by the pop singer Madonna.
The designer with the short-cropped blond hair and the sailor-striped shirts has earned a spot on the fashion world's Mount Olympus. Although he is not known for his practicality, utility, or affordability, the world can always count on him to provide some of the most surreal, fantastic concepts ever seen in fashion's history.
Jean Paul Gaultier Website
http://www.jeanpaulgaultier.com/
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