Gaultier at the Grand Palais
Already staged in Montreal, Dallas, San Francisco, Madrid, Rotterdam, Stockholm, New York, London and Melbourne, this first exhibition devoted to the star couturier is being enriched for its 10th port-of-call with installations specially designed for its homecoming.
Fabulously creative and curious, almost inseparable from his legendary striped T-shirt, Jean-Paul Gaultier has always seized the latest mood to assert his right to be different. Appropriation, metamorphoses and transgressions are all part of the vocabulary heard in his “maison de couture”. Tearing down frontiers between cultures, but also the sexes, he creates a new kind of androgyny while flirting with “hyper-sexualized” styles. Viewed by the designer as a creation in its own right, this exhibition brings together 175 accessorized ensembles of “haute couture” and ready-to-wear in a thematic presentation comprised of eight sections, covering the period from 1976 to 2015. Many archive documents and flagship items are also revealed for the first time. Sketches, video-clips, excerpts from fashion shows and films signed Almodovar, Besson, Caro and Jeunet, plus stage costumes such as Madonna’s legendary corset and designs for Yvette Horner and Mylène Farmer complete the exhibition. A multimedia event celebrating the audacity and avant-garde approach of the “enfant terrible” of fashion who, under the cover of humour and fantasy, delivers a strong social message for a world without discrimination.
Grand Palais Galeries Nationales, until August 3rd (www.grandpalais.fr).
