Jean Paul Gaultier

Jean Paul Gaultier
Born	(1952-04-24) 24 April 1952 Arcueil, Val-de-Marne, France
Nationality	French
Occupation	Fashion designer
Labels	Jean Paul Gaultier, Hermès

Jean Paul Gaultier (French: [ʒɑ̃ pÉ”l É¡otje]; born 24 April 1952 in Arcueil, Val-de-Marne, France) is a French haute couture fashion designer. Gaultier was the creative director of Hermès from 2003 to 2010. In the past, he has hosted the television series Eurotrash.

Life and career

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. Afterwards he worked with Jacques Esterel in 1971 and Jean Patou later that year, then returning to manage the Pierre Cardin boutique in Manila for a year in 1974.

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 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.

Although most people found his designs decadent at the time, fashion editors, notably Melka Tréanton of Elle, Claude Brouet and Catherine Lardeur of French Marie Claire, were seduced by his creativity and immediately noticed his mastery of tailoring and later launched his career. In 1985 he introduced man-skirts, and produced sculptured costumes for Madonna during the nineties, starting with her infamous cone bra for her 1990 Blond Ambition Tour, and designed the wardrobe for her 2006 Confessions Tour. Gaultier has also worked in close collaboration with Wolford Hosiery. He promoted the use of skirts, especially kilts on men's wardrobe, and the release of designer collections.

Jean-Paul Gaultier's bread exhibit, Paris, 2004.

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 earned him both criticism and enormous popularity.

At the end of the 1980s, Gaultier suffered some personal losses, including his lover and business partner Francis Menuge, who died of AIDS-related causes.

Gaultier designed the wardrobe of many motion pictures, including Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, Pedro Almodóvar's Kika, Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's La Cité des enfants perdus (The City of Lost Children). He currently designs for three collections: his own couture and ready-to-wear lines, for both men and women.

In 1988 Gaultier released a dance single titled "How To Do That" on Fontana records from which came one of the first ever "single title" remix albums "Aow Tou Dou Zat" on Mercury records. The album includes mixes by Norman Cook, JJ Jeczalik, George Shilling, Mark Saunders, Latin Rascals, David Dorrell, Tim Atkins, Carl Atkins, and Mantronik. Co-written & produced by Tony Mansfield, video directed by Jean Baptiste Mondino. The album also featured a collaboration with accordion player Yvette Horner.

Gaultier has designed a number of the costumes and outfits worn by rocker Marilyn Manson, including the outfits for Manson's Golden Age of Grotesque album. In France the costumes he designed for singer Mylène Farmer gained much attention. In spring 2008 he signed a contract to be again the fashion designer for her tour in 2009.

He's also well known for his exhibit in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art known as Bravehearts â€” Men in Skirts.

He has designed the costumes for Kylie Minogue's international KYLIEX2008 tour, as well as the late iconic Hong Kong singer Leslie Cheung, who hired Gaultier to design eight different costumes for the last concert tour before Cheung's death.

In 2012, he was named as a member of the Jury for the Main Competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This is the first time a fashion designer was called to sit on a jury at the festival.

Gallery of selected past designs

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  Gaultier's notoriety increased in the 1980s with several cone-breasted designs, similar to one worn on tour by Madonna.

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  A bustier-style dress made of grass that is woven to resemble feathers.

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  Designs resembling the human muscle and circulatory systems (left) and torsolette, or "merry widow" undergarments (right).

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  An iconoclastic white lace design combining a halo and mask similar to fetish bondage-wear.

Collections and labels

Gaultier at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

Active Labels Labels include Jean Paul Gaultier, Gaultier PARIS – couture collection – and former JEAN'S Paul Gaultier, Eyewear Jean Paul Gaultier and Jean Paul Gaultier Argent. Besides his ready-to-wear collection, in 1988 Gaultier expanded his brand to include the label Junior Gaultier, a lower-priced line designed for the youth market with a heavy nautical influence that he began to carry throughout all of his collections. In 1988, a Junior Gaultier outfit was selected by Jeff Banks as the Dress of the Year. The Junior Gaultier label was replaced in 1994 with JPG by Gaultier, a unisex collection that followed the designer's idea of fluidity of the sexes. Gaultier Jean's, a similar line consisting mainly of denim and more simply styled garments with a heavy street influence, followed in 1992, which was then replaced with Jean's Paul Gaultier from 2004 to 2008. Junior Gaultier's name was reused in 2009 for the launching of the child's wear, to be completed with a Baby Line in 2011.

What brought Gaultier immense success was the advent of his haute couture line in 1997. Through this collection, he was able to freely express the scope and range of his aesthetic, drawing inspiration from radically divergent cultures, from imperial India to Hasidic Judaism. As a result of this success, Hermès hired Gaultier as creative director from 2003 to 2010. Hermes took a 30% stake in Jean Paul Gaultier in 2003 and later increased their stake to 45%.

Gaultier's Spring 2009 couture was influenced by the visual style of singer Klaus Nomi and he used Nomi's recording of Cold Song in his runway show.

Perfumes

Le Male Perfume by Jean Paul Gaultier

In addition to being a fashion designer, Jean Paul Gaultier is known for a popular line of perfumes. His first fragrance, Classique, a women's floral-oriental, was introduced in 1993, followed by Le Mâle for men two years later. Both were highly successful, and Le Mâle is now the number-one men's fragrance in the European Union based on sales; it also holds a strong market position in Australia and the United States.

His third fragrance, the women's fragrance Fragile, was introduced in 2000; however, it is now in limited distribution due to poor sales. In 2005, the unisex "fragrance for humanity" Gaultier² (pronounced Gaultier to the power of two) was launched (except in Canada, where it was launched in January 2006, and the United States, where it was launched in August 2006). Most recently, Jean Paul Gaultier's latest men's fragrance, Fleur du Mâle was launched in April 2007. Shortly thereafter, the "Eau de Cologne Fleur du Male" was released demonstrating a lighter version of the Fleur du Male. The newest in the Gaultier family of fragrances is ladies fragrance "Ma Dame".

The 6 July 2011 the new men's fragrance, Kokorico, has been launched at the La Gaîté Lyrique, just after the Haute Couture F/w 2011-2012 fashion show

All Jean Paul Gaultier perfumes are produced under a long-term license by Paris-based Beauté Prestige International.

External links

• Official Jean-Paul Gaultier Site
• Jean Paul Gaultier on Fashion Net
• "Interactive timeline of couture houses and couturier biographies". Victoria and Albert Museum. http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1486_couture/explore.php. 
• Tous les défilés Jean-Paul Gaultier en images - Madame Figaro