The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier

Jean Paul Gaultier
Photo courtesy of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

I'm off to Montreal this morning to attend tomorrow's press preview of The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk. And I'm going even though there is a looming strike at Air Canada and there are a myriad of important events on the schedule for this week.

From what I've read and seen in the advance press materials, the show is going to be spectacular. I was granted interviews with curators Nathalie Bondil and Thierry Maxime Loriot and will be writing an exhibition review for Fashion Projects.

In preparation for my trip, I looked back at posts I wrote about Gaultier in the past (of which there are nine!). I also reread my posts from June 2008 about the Yves Saint Laurent retrospective which also was held at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Back then, I wished that I'd been able to attend the opening for that exhibition and three years later I have just such an invitation in hand....

My Fashion Calendar for June

Invite to the Jean Paul Gaultier Opening Night Party

In the past few months, I've traveled to New York, LA, San Francisco, San Diego, and Paris in the quest of art and fashion. Although I am a bit weary, the show that looks to be the most promising in terms of spectacle is the Jean Paul Gaultier retrospective at the Musee des Beaux Arts in Montreal. This show called "The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier" is a celebration of the designer's 35 year career. Opening to the public on June 17th, the exhibition will later travel to Dallas and San Francisco.  I will  be attending the press preview on June 13th to interview the curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot and to write a review for Fashion Projects.  The opening night event just might to be THE party of the season, and of course that necessitated a new frock by Jean Paul Gaultier which is awaiting its debut in my closet.

Also on my calendar is this Thursday's party at the Spoke Club for Rent-Frock-Repeat This is a business that offers cocktail and evening gowns for rental.  Apparently, all it takes is a click of a mouse to chose from RfR’s inventory of designer collections and two sizes of the dress will be delivered to the customer's home or office. After the party, the dresses go back in a postage paid package. It is that simple! And what a clever idea for those that like to keep their look up-to-the-minute.

Beyond that, I will be speaking to costume history students again at Ryerson University and also have a writing deadline for Worn Fashion Journal. And then, I'm looking forward to a relatively quiet summer, especially as the sun has finally made an appearance in Toronto and my backyard beckons.

Clothing as Canvas by Jean Paul Gaultier

Virgin with Child and Angels by Jean Fouquet 1450
 (Painting in collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp)

In 1450, artist Jean Fouquet painted an eroticized version of the Madonna with her breast exposed in his painting "Virgin with Child and Angels".  Believed to be based on Agnès Sorel, a favoured and beautiful mistress of King Charles VII, this painting must have raised some controversy in its time.


In 1994, fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier, no stranger to controversy himself, used Fouquet's image to create the fabric for this transparent and form fitting man's t-shirt and woman's dress. 

Man's T-shirt 2001.128.9 and Woman's Dress 999.113.3.1
by Jean Paul Gaultier 1994 (Photo by ROM staff)

Art and fashion become one in these garments with the clothing acting as canvas. According to Dr. Alexandra Palmer, Senior Curator of Fashion and Textiles at the ROM, these garments question "our historic and current understanding of fashion, gender and the body, as well as the role of religious painting."  Look at the positioning of the Madonna on the man's t-shirt compared to the positioning of the image on the woman's dress (back and front have similar placement). 

Installation shot Patricia Harris Gallery of Costume and Textiles at the ROM
Photo by ROM staff 2011

These two garments are currently on display in the Patricia Harris Gallery of Costumes and Textiles at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Photo credits: All photos provided by the Royal Ontario Museum and are subject to copyright. 

Jean-Paul Gaultier for Target

 

Photo by Daniel King for Elle Magazine

If you bow to the gods of fashion as I do, get thyself to a Target store tomorrow! The Jean-Paul Gaultier limited-edition line for Target will be on the floor from March 7th to April 11, 2010. 

Known as the bad boy of French fashion, Gaultier designs under his own label as well as for the revered Hermes. Having had no formal training, he was hired by Pierre Cardin at age 18 and worked there until 1976, when he launched his own luxury line. His past collections have been a unique combination of luxe and irreverence and have included putting men in skirts and designing underwear as outerwear.

Gaultier said his collection for Target took him back to his roots and was inspired by the energy and strength of the American woman. "She's fresh faced and rebellious, feisty and provocative. She's the American woman. It boldly captures her personality and energy with a decidedly French twist."  The look-book shows five muses: Punk, Hollywood Glam, Ingenue, Hip Hop and Rock and Roll. The collection features such items as a long-sleeve tattoo t-shirt,  a delectable yellow Marilyn Monroe garden-party dress, a soft brown leather Perfecto jacket, a hip camel coloured trench and a striped bustier. 

Jean-Paul Gaultier

Photo by Francois Guillot

This image from the recent Paris couture collections haunts me. This spectacular garment by Jean Paul Gaultier seems to combine both the corset and the crinoline in a singular piece. Not that I'd ever wear such a thing, but I find the sculptural qualities of it mesmerizing! Apparently, Gaultier's 2010 Mexican themed collection was inspired by Mel Gibson's 2007 movie Apocalypto and featured a melange of vivid colours, fringe and basket-woven leather.You won't find this in Gaultier's upcoming collection for Target. Such an object is likely destined to a fashion museum....

  

What's on the Fashion Calendar for March

Monday, March 1, 2010:  Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto 7-8 pm
International Women’s Day Lecture:  Heights of Fashion: A History of the Elevated Shoe
Illustrated Talk by Elizabeth Semmelhack, Curator, Bata Shoe Museum

Common sense suggests that shoes should protect our feet and aid our mobility but the high heel challenges this----it is not a sensible shoe. So why, then, do millions of women, but very few men, wear them? How did such an impractical shoe come to be a potent signifier of status and more importantly, gender? This talk will address these questions by going beyond a simple charting of shifting modes of dress and engage with a wide range of subjects: East-West trade and the lure of the exotic; the expression of socio-economic status through impractical dress; and gender politics and the construction of eroticized femininity.

Saturday, March 6th: Toronto Vintage Clothing and Textile Show and Sale
The 19th Annual Vintage Clothing and Textile Sale will be held on Saturday, March 6, 2010 at the CNIB Centre. Available for sale are vintage clothing and accessories, early textiles including quilts, linens, laces, samplers and related sewing items, and heritage estate jewelery.

Sunday, March 7th:  Jean-Paul Gaultier Collection for Target hits stores today! If you see me, watch out as I'll be sharpening my elbows!!!

It's also the night of the Oscars and what better time to point out that the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angelos has an exhibition called Hollywood 2010: The Art of Motion Picture Costume Design which runs from February 9, 2010 – April 17, 2010. On display are over 100 costumes from over two dozen of last year's movies, such as The Young Victoria, Star Trek, Julie & Julia, An Education, Nine, Broken Embraces, and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. Also on display are the fashions from The Duchess, the Academy Award® winner for Best Costume Design in 2008. The free exhibition is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

And that is just for the first week of March! Whew!!

Chanel and Sailor Chic

Where does inspiration come from? That is a question that lingers in my mind, especially when I think I have come up with an original idea only to discover that someone else has beat me to it.

On January 7th, Christina Binkley wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal about the wave in sailor chic for spring fashions and linked the trend to the 2009 movie Coco before Chanel featuring Audrey Tautou. She wrote:

"A popular film and several recent books about Coco Chanel have everything to do with the mariniere revival. When the French-language film "Coco Before Chanel" debuted in April 2009, it helped ignite new interest in the designer's 60 year career and habit of adapting menswear to her own devices. The marieniere is so closely connected with Ms. Chanel that its use in fashion is often attributed to her. The actress Audrey Tautou wore a mariniere in her role as Ms. Chanel."

In art as in fashion, it is sometimes difficult to pin down the source of a movement or a trend. But I had to wonder whether it really was the movie that inspired Jean Paul Gaultier, Riccardo Tisci, Michael Bastien, Proenza Schouler to design marine-inspired looks for spring 2010. And the reason that I ask that question is because there was a show called Les Marins Font La Mode (Sailor Chic) at the Musee National de la Marine last spring in Paris. I had the good fortune to walk through with the commissaire Delphine Allannic-Costa and learned a great deal from her. 

The show began with a display of marine uniforms and ended with a spectacular display of contemporary haute couture fashions that incorporated the sailor theme(including Givenchy, Dior, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Kenzo). In between, the exhibition traced the history of sailor chic in fashion back as far as the 19th Century, years before Chanel was even born. In Victorian times,  anchor embroidery, striped designs, navy-inspired hats, and Sunday sailor outfits for rowing on the Seine were popular. As well, Queen Victoria had navy outfits made for her children, a trend which was then adopted across Europe. And while Chanel may have drawn on the marine influence in her Deauville creations, it is a myth that she alone inspired sailor chic.

Having seen the exhibition Les Marins Font La Mode in Paris last spring, I would speculate that the sailor chic trend for spring is more likely to have come from this incredible show. After all, the exhibition was three years in the making and many of the designers who lent outfits to the show would have known about it and perhaps seen the show themselves. What do you think?