His is an extraordinary world where animality, ethnicity, fetish, glamour, humour, religion and surrealism enlace to electrifying fantasy.
As ‘The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier’ opens at London’s Barbican Centre, we salute the undisputable Oracle of Originality with these images from the MoDa’s Touch archives.
POPPY LOVE
Weightless and bridal-white amid a mass of glossy foliage, Tinker Bell is floating in a Gaultier silk tulle web. As delicate as butterfly wings vulnerable to the gentlest breeze, yet safe in his signature corsetry.
Poppy Delevingne in Gaultier Paris, Spring/Summer 2009.
GALACTIC DITA
The location was stark and reminiscent of 60s Sci-Fi movies. And then Dita is suddenly upon us in an aura from outer space, released in a brilliant and daring apparition. Strapped and caged in empowering Gaultier, her poses reverberated with ever more force. So very The Fifth Element!
Dita Von Teese in Gaultier Paris, Fall/Winter 2008.
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM
At the strike of midnight amid the splendour and magnificence of the Victoria & Albert Museum, Erin O’Connor sashays from one vast hall to another in dramatic Gaultier with an explosion of silk tulle ruffles, cascading from an armour-like bustier. The French windows tremble fretfully as she swishes past the the Dorothy and Michael Hintze Sculpture Galleries, and her light thump echoes throughout the museum.
Erin O’Connor in Gaultier Paris, Spring/Summer 2011.
ISADORA IS ALIVE
With references to bygone eras, a thespian look brought an ancient legend to life. A series of mysterious and liberated silhouettes ensued and the theatre began. Pirouetting vigorously in ethereal Gaultier, No
