Jean Paul Gaultier was born in 1952 in Arcueil, a suburb of Paris. As a teenager, he made sketches of two collections a year, taking his inspiration from fashion magazines, films from the interwar period, and 1960s television programs like Dim, Dam, Dom that covered fashion. His maternal grandmother owned a television, uncommon in France at that time, and let her grandson watch whatever he liked. He developed a critical and analytical sense of fashion, as well as his own design vocabulary. Fascinated by unusual Parisiennes, Jean Paul Gaultier created a new look and favoured unconventional types of beauty:

“As a child, my attention was always drawn by those women who didn’t look like everyone else . . . ”

Self-taught, as of 1970 he discovered the tradition and skills of haute couture through stints at Pierre Cardin and Jean Patou. Part of a new generation of fashion designers, he went out on his own, starting with women’s prêt-à-porter in 1976, then with men’s in 1983. Twenty years later, Jean Paul Gaultier kept the flag of Parisian elegance flying high by opening his own couture house, from then on showing two collections a year. From 2004 until 2010, in addition to producing four collections for his prêt-à-porter lines annually, he designed two others for Hermès.

Regulated by the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, haute couture is shown exclusively in Paris. Couture houses must comply with specific requirements regarding how garments are made, presented and sold. Unlike industrially produced prêt-à-porter, couture is a fine craft whose one-of-a-kind objects are the product of exceptional technical virtuosity. Creating certain designs sometimes necessitates hundreds of hours of work. Everything involved in a couture garment—from embroidery and lace to accessories and the final finishing touches—must be entirely accomplished by hand. Even though it receives a great deal of media attention, rarely is the general public afforded a direct experience of haute couture.

“You are a true designer when people recognise your work without even looking at the label. This is the case for Jean Paul Gaultier.”
– Pierre Cardin

With his cobbled together, conical-shaped falsies, Nana the teddy bear is the touching witness to the creative beginnings of Jean Paul Gaultier who, as a little boy, was fascinated by the old-fashioned charm of corsets, a passion springing from childhood memories. Marie, his maternal grandmother, introduced him at a very young age to women’s fashions and Falbalas, the Jacques Becker film recounting the rise of a young couturier had a profound effect on him. Reworking the early twentieth-century corsets and 1940s waist-cinchers dug out of his grandmother’s closets, he has created new classics, like the cone bra, and underwear as outerwear. In the wardrobes of women today, his corset dresses symbolise power and sensuality.

Brought up by strong women, the couturier does not subscribe to the myth of the weaker sex. With derisive humor, he reinterprets the signs of the imprisoned female body. The hoops or cage crinolines of the nineteenth century symbolically confined women to their roles as wives and mothers, while the corsets of those times served, among other things, to conceal an abdomen swollen by pregnancy—a sight then deemed indecent because of religious considerations. For his part, Jean Paul Gaultier has chosen to instead design a corset that emphasises the fulfillment of the modern expectant mother. By reworking that garment, he has offered the attributes of womanliness to those denied them. The runway show for his Dada collection (spring-summer 1983) showcased the exaggerated breasts of totemic African fertility symbols, an assertion of women’s power. He has also given men the opportunity to once again don corsets, as did the dandies and English military men of the nineteenth century, who wore them to improve their strength and endurance.

Gaultier’s corseted women seemed like the negation of the feminist struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, but in reality the designer prompted a more post-feminist emancipation in terms of appearance. Many stars have worn the various iterations of his corsets with concentrically topstitched bra cups—Madonna topping the list with the iconic designs for the 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour, but also Catherine Ringer of Les Rita Mitsouko, Cindy Sherman, Grace Jones, Dita Von Teese and Kylie Minogue. Far from being an instrument of torture imprisoning women’s bodies, the corset now embodies the new power of the female, as well as shapes its counterpoint of the male jacket, the distant progeny of the knight’s suit of armour.

Jean Paul Gaultier was born in the suburbs of Paris, but his heart beats to the rhythm of both rough-and-ready Paris and rock-attitude London. He is fascinated by the Paris of the Belle Époque and the interwar years, the Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec and the Moulin Rouge, the colourful throngs crowding the streets of the Barbès area and, of course, the Eiffel Tower. He loves the postcard Paris that calls to mind the Parisians in Brassaï photographs, the denizens of the city’s bistros and cabarets. These many visions of Paris set the scene for the multifaceted character whom Jean Paul Gaultier unflaggingly pays court to: the Parisienne.

La Goulue, Arletty, Micheline Presle and Juliette Greco are his icons. He gives new twists to their classic accoutrements—beret, trench coat, cigarette holder, houndstooth checks, gingham, and baguette. He contrasts The Uptight Charm of the Bourgeoisie (autumn-winter 1985–1986) with the sass of The Concierge is in the Staircase (spring-summer 1988). His Parisienne alternately morphs into a 1940s existentialist or a 1950s couture customer, nonchalantly moving between the Paris of the multiethnic suburbs and the glittering circles of high society. By combining those opposite worlds, he ennobles mundane garments and derides the smugness of conventional good taste.

An apprentice couturier with Cardin in 1970 and 1974, Jean Paul Gaultier then became an independent designer and interpreter of societal turmoil. In January 1997, he returned to the elite ranks of his profession by opening his own couture house, a bold decision to ensure the continuity of haute couture’s fine crafts and tradition. In 2004, the Jean Paul Gaultier headquarters was set up in Paris’s 3rd arrondissement, in the former Palais des Arts de l’Avenir du Prolétariat, far from the city’s middle-class neighbourhoods and other couture houses.

As a child, he listened to his grandmother tell stories about life during the war. Women were already recycling then, to cope with the prevailing shortages: men’s suits were altered for women; pants became skirts. By enriching recycled objects, Jean Paul Gaultier made them magnificent. Sumptuous linings turned military garments into formal attire, while evening gowns sprang from camouflage-print fabrics.

Traveling to London in the early 1970s, he got his first look at the styles adopted by the punks of Trafalgar Square, whose alternative artistry would stimulate new aesthetic codes. Punk’s antimaterialist principles would have an influence on the designer, enabling him to explore a nonconformist fashion. He found inspiration and new materials in the energy of London’s streets, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s SEX boutique and, with David Bowie and his alter ego Ziggy Stardust at its head, the glam rock movement. A couturier with a punk soul, he adopted the concepts of recycling and the offbeat, penury forcing him to be inventive. The total rebellion, the trash, ‘destroy’ look appealed to him:

“…the raw side of punk, with its Mohawk haircuts, almost tribal makeup, allusions to sex, torn fishnet stockings, black, kilts, bondage straps, mixing of genders and materials—all that spoke to me, suiting me much better than some of the ossified conventions of the couture.”

“Except for the medieval codpiece and the bra, garments have never had a gender. ” – Jean Paul Gaultier

For Jean Paul Gaultier, skin and body are inexhaustible sources of inspiration. In his hands, materials become ‘second skins.’ With prints of flayed or tattooed bodies, he explores the possibilities of trompe l’oeil. His fascination with skin feeds his imagination and guides his at once romantic and fetishistic designs.

In opposition to the rule of thin, he has offered the sensuality of plus sizes, and sent out a powerful message: Be yourself, no matter what nature has dealt you! Instead of ethereal Swedish blondes, he chooses models with character. For his runway shows, he started to hold open casting calls, recruiting with classified ads that read:

“Non-conformist designer seeks unusual models
—the conventionally pretty need not apply”

In the early 1980s, Jean Paul Gaultier began introducing a diversity of genres, 
a wide range of looks that encompassed even the hypersexualised and the transgendered. As a child who had suffered from his ‘different’ sexual identity, he offered one and all the freedom to choose their own, whether ‘butch’, ‘boy toy’ or anything in between. In the summer of 1985, the designer wrote a new page in the history of fashion with his A Wardrobe for Two collection, reflecting his investigation of masculine, feminine, androgynous and alternative conventions. He proposed a post-macho look with the skirt for men, which once again lent credibility to an item of clothing that, in ancient times and other cultures, had been entirely accepted.

Following from that, Gaultier created ‘men’s couture.’ With The Modern Man, 
a haute couture collection that still remains unique, the male wardrobe was enriched by delicate, sophisticated materials. The Gaultier style features a blend of the classic and the unconventional, a mixture of rock and tradition that has inspired most of his collections. It gives men a new right, that of appealing through the expression of their fragility and sensitivity – something women seem to appreciate.

In stark contrast, he showed a woman capable of asserting the ‘masculine’ side of her personality. For her 2006 Confessions Tour, he turned Madonna into an equestrian dominatrix surrounded by harness-bound ‘slave’ dancers. His work has been marked by many allusions to bondage and the X-rated, with latex, leather, fishnet and other sadomasochistic paraphernalia dressing his new-style horsewomen in ‘ready-for-sex’ designs, close by-products of late 1970s power dressing, that some have found outrageous and others sublimely elegant.

“The costumes Jean Paul Gaultier designs are wonderfully beautiful and absolutely ‘conceptual’ at the same time. Almost no one else is able to combine both in the same garment. ” – Pedro Almodovar

As a child during the television era, fascinated by movies and variety shows, Jean Paul Gaultier absorbed culture through the lens of the small screen. Fashion interested him only insofar as he could turn it into spectacle. He saw runway shows as happenings, trips to special worlds of his devising, with their own original soundtracks, decors and unusual casting choices. As the co-host of the program Eurotrash, he was the first fashion designer to become a television star. That new status as a media darling coincided with the rise of fashion as a powerful form of expression in an image-obsessed society.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Gaultier borrowed from the realms of science fiction and the emerging sounds of new wave and house music. He stayed ahead of the fashion pack by introducing high-tech materials such as vinyl, lycra and neoprene to prêt-à-porter, and by creating innovative blends, such as neoprene-coated leather, as well as 3-D and even inflatable fabrics! He also brought out his first pieces of electronic jewellery, created by his life partner and associate Francis Menuge.

In a playful attitude, he translated his concern for recycling and the protection of the environment by creating garments out of garbage bags for his High-Tech collection (autumn-winter 1980–1981). Steel wool cleaning pads became necklaces, and aluminum cans turned into bracelets. The tribute to the Russian Constructivist art movement in his autumn-winter 1986 prêt-à-porter collection was more about mixing materials, with its jostle of leather, vinyl, sequins and jersey.

Gaultier’s futuristic vision of fashion has also been reflected in his memorable collaborations with stars of the pop and rock world, who wear his designs on stage or in their videos. Many music artists have availed themselves of his talent for setting trends: Tina Turner, Nirvana, Lady Gaga, Les Rita Mitsouko, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Niagara, Neneh Cherry, Depeche Mode, Beyoncé, Yvette Horner, Mylène Farmer, Boy George, Cameo, Kylie Minogue and, of course, Madonna.

Between 1983 and 1993, Jean Paul Gaultier designed the costumes for sixteen of French choreographer Régine Chopinot’s ballets. That long-running artistic association served as a laboratory for the couturier, the structures and materials of his designs suggesting and even imposing certain rhythms and gestures on dancers. As the costume sketches and video excerpts shown here demonstrate, he has continued this exceptional collaboration with the dance world, working with Angelin Preljocaj, Karole Armitage, Maurice Béjart and Joaquìn Cortès. As for the costumes he has designed for the big screen—for Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (The City of Lost Children), Peter Greenaway (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover), Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) and, especially, Pedro Almodóvar (Kika, Bad Education, The Skin I Live In) — they sustain the dramatic intensity of the films involved, while at the same time remain true to his own creative vocabulary.

“I respect individualities and I like particularities. I mix and match, collect, twist and crossbreed codes. Past, present, here, elsewhere, masculine, feminine, remarkable, humdrum—it all coexists. ” – Jean Paul Gaultier

Fascinated by differences, Jean Paul Gaultier sees stylistic hunting grounds in those realms untouched by the hallowed halls of fashion. Transposing, reappropriating and assembling, he gives shape to transborder crossfertilisation. Societies and individuals separated by language, custom and geography merge into a world whose passports proclaim ‘Planet Gaultier.’ Through his designs, the couturier orchestrates an intercultural dialogue.

Starting in the Return of Prints collection (spring-summer 1984), Gaultier created a unique new mixture of Africa and Europe by making boubous out of tunics and mini-skirts and covering his models’ heads in fezzes. His Barbès collection (autumn-winter 1984–1985) forayed deeper into culture shock. In it, the designer reinvented happy accidents observed in the streets of the Parisian neighbourhood where he has never tired of strolling. He sees it as:

“A melting pot of peoples, and this intermixing, this splendid vibrancy symbolises the new Paris. ”

The designer erases the boundaries he observes within the many tribes of the urban jungle: the Bedouins of Barbès, geishas at the Louvre, African marabouts, chic rabbis, Chinese women dressed as flamenco dancers, Russian icons, Bollywood maharajahs. He has invented a new aesthetic that reflects the mix of cultures and peoples in the major urban centres of today. Hanging in the wardrobe those results can be found: Chinese satin brocade pants, kimonos, Eastern European peasant blouses, Mongolian vests, Greek fustanellas, Masai necklaces, sarouel pants, fezzes and turbans. He has also explored the exotic world of the animal kingdom by creating hybrid bodies through a process of surrealistic reinterpretation: women morph into parrots, adorn themselves with trompe l’oeil beaded leopard pelts, or slip into a studded python skin number, sharkskin jumpsuit or feather dress.

In a context of globalised markets where the majority imposes generic fashion and minorities cut themselves off in ghettos, when multicultural thinking falters before the challenge of integration, Jean Paul Gaultier reassembles the parts of the whole to make way for a multi-ethnic personality. He thinks of society as a cocktail—mixed, stirred, spiced, varied, decompartmentalised. The product of a single melting pot, society no longer consists of groups indifferent to one another while living side by side. It is made up of individuals, and each of them tells the story of our diversity.

“Non-conformist designer seeks unusual models – the conventionally beautiful need not apply. ”
─Advert placed by Jean Paul Gaultier in the French daily newspaper Libération

From his early days as a designer, Jean Paul Gaultier was inspired by unusual models, and didn’t follow industry trends for typical model looks. He held open casting calls for his catwalk models, being drawn to those who were not conventionally ‘beautiful’. Many of his early muses have remained important influences, including Farida Khelfa, who became the first top model with a North African background after starting her career with Gaultier in 1979.

In opposition to the fashion catwalk and advertising status quo of using tall, blonde and ethereal looking models, Gaultier deliberately selects models of all races, ages, genders and body shapes, including choosing those who were bald, tattooed, and pierced, decades before it became mainstream. He is drawn to difference:

“Perfection is relative and beauty is subjective. I wanted to make imperfection admirable… Sometimes a different energy and bearing, or an unusual type of body catches my eye and makes me want to invent something. With both haute couture and prêt-à-porter, I’ve always tried to create collections that could speak to all kinds of men and women of different ages and style.”

Gaultier was the first to work with androgynous models Teri Toye and Andrej Pejić, with the latter appearing as both male and female on the catwalk. Andrej has now undergone sexual reassignment surgery and is now legally named Andreja. He has cast lead singer of the American group Gossip, Beth Ditto, on his catwalk and has been particularly drawn to Australian models, actresses and performers including Alexandra Agoston, Nicole Kidman, Kylie Minogue, Catherine McNeil and Gemma Ward.

Gaultier’s universal values go beyond the established etiquette of the fashion world. The strong social message found in his designs, catwalk shows and advertising campaigns champions fashion as a form of expression, inclusivity and a celebration of diversity.

April 24, 1952
Jean Paul Gaultier is born in Arcueil, a suburb of Paris. Gaultier’s father is a bookkeeper and his mother, a cashier. As a teenager, he designs two collections a year, just for fun, taking inspiration from the top designers and fashion magazines.

1970
After having sent his sketches to several Paris-based designers, on his eighteenth birthday he is hired as a studio assistant by Pierre Cardin.

1971–1973
Gaultier has stints at Jacques Esterel and Jean Patou.

1974–1975
He returns to work for Pierre Cardin, this time in Manila, in the Philippines, where he designs collections for the North American market.

1976
He establishes his own prêt-à-porter label with the help of his life partner, Francis Menuge. His first runway show takes place at the Palais de la découverte planetarium in Paris.

1978
Dominique Emschwiller, manager of the Paris boutique Bus Stop, and Yoshio Nakamoto, of the Japanese company Kashiyama, play a key role in getting the Jean Paul Gaultier label off the ground. With what will be his first collection, they entrust him with designing the group’s prêt-à-porter for women.

1981
The companies Gibò and Equator become Gaultier’s new manufacturing partners. Kashiyama continues to produce, under license, the Jean Paul Gaultier line for the Japanese and Far East market. Gaultier founds the Société Jean Paul Gaultier with Francis Menuge.

1983
The first corset-style dresses are shown. Beginning of the collaboration between the designer and the choreographer Régine Chopinot, who will work together on sixteen shows over the next ten years. First Men’s prêt-à-porter collection.

1985
His And God Created Man collection introduces the men’s skirt.

1986
The first Jean Paul Gaultier boutique opens in the Galerie Vivienne, Paris.

1988
The first Junior Gaultier collection is launched, offering the designer’s basics at prices that are more affordable for the general public.

1989
Gaultier records a house music song “Aow Tou Dou Zat” (“How To Do That”). He designs costumes for the Peter Greenaway film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.

1990
Gaultier designs the stage costumes for Madonna’s Blond Ambition World Tour. The photo-strip autobiography À Nous Deux la mode is published. Gaultier designs costumes for accordionist Yvette Horner’s show at the Casino de Paris.

1992
A collection of mobile furniture evoking travel is presented at the Galerie VIA (Valorisation de l’Innovation dans l’Ameublement [promoting innovation in furniture]) in Paris. The retrospective runway show Jean Paul Gaultier in L.A. is held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles to raise funds for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR).

1993
Gaultier’s first fragrance for women, Classique, is launched. The television series Eurotrash, co-hosted by Gaultier and Antoine de Caunes, premieres on Britain’s Channel 4. He designs costumes for the Pedro Almodóvar film Kika.

1995
His first fragrance for men, Le Male, is launched. Jean Paul Gaultier hosts the MTV Europe Music Awards in Paris. He designs costumes for the Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet film The City of Lost Children.

1996
Gaultier designs costumes for the Luc Besson film The Fifth Element.

1997
Presentation of Gaultier’s first haute couture collection, Haute Couture Salon Atmosphere.

1999
Gaultier signs a partnership agreement with the house of Hermès. A fragrance for women, Fragile, is launched.

2000
Gaultier receives an International Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).

2001
Gaultier designs the costumes for the “Geisha” and “Flamenco” segments of Madonna’s Drowned World Tour. He designs the costumes for the Gabriel Aghion film Absolutely Fabulous. Gaultier is named a Chevalier of the Order of the Legion of Honor.

2003
Nicole Kidman receives the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in the Stephen Daldry film The Hours wearing a gown from the Buttons haute couture collection. Hermès names Gaultier creative director of its Women’s prêt-à-porter. The first men’s cosmetic and skincare line, Tout beau, tout propre, is launched.

2004
Gaultier’s first collection for Hermès is shown (Women’s prêt-à-porter fall/winter 2004–2005). He designs the costumes for the Pedro Almodóvar film Bad Education.

2005
A fragrance for both women and men, GAULTIER2, is launched.

2006
Gaultier designs the costumes for Madonna’s worldwide Confessions Tour.

2008
Gaultier designs the costumes for Kylie Minogue’s X2008 Tour. He also designs the costumes for the ballet Snow White, choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj. Designs a bottle for Evian. A fragrance for women, Ma Dame, is launched. Marion Cotillard receives an Oscar and a César for Best Actress for her portrayal of Édith Piaf in the Olivier Dahan film La Vie en Rose, both times wearing designs from the Mermaids haute couture collection.

2009
Gaultier designs the costumes for Mylène Farmer’s No. 5 tour. Launch of the first Junior Gaultier collection for children.

2010
Launch of a capsule collection for Target, the American retail chain. Gaultier redesigns the Elle Décoration Suite at the Palais Chaillot in Paris. Gaultier collaborates with Roche-Bobois on the design of the Jean Paul Gaultier furniture line, as well as on the reissue of iconic pieces designed for Galerie VIA in 1992. Creation of a capsule collection for La Perla. In New York City, the designer receives an amfAR Inspiration Award for his contribution to male fashion and for his tireless commitment to humanitarian causes. Presentation of the final Hermès collection designed by Gaultier (Women’s prêt-à-porter spring–summer 2011).

2011
Gaultier designs costumes for the Pedro Almodóvar film The Skin I Live In. End of the partnership with Hermès. The Catalan group Puig becomes the majority shareholder in the House of Jean Paul Gaultier. Launch of the Kokorico men’s fragrance and the Jean Paul Gaultier layette line. The first exhibition celebrating the designer’s thirty-five-year career is organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (June 2011). The exhibition later travels to the Dallas Museum of Art (November 2011), the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young (March 2012), the Fundación Mapfre – Instituto de Cultura in Madrid (October 2012), the Kunsthal Rotterdam (February 2013), the Arkitekturmuseet in Stockholm (June 2013), the Brooklyn Museum in New York (October 2013), the Barbican Centre in London (April 2014), the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne (October 2014), the Galeries nationales du Grand Palais in Paris (April 2015) and the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung in Munich (September 2015).

2012
Gaultier designs costumes for Madonna’s MDNA Tour. Gaultier receives the DUFTSTARS – Berlin award for his entire body of work in fragrance. Named creative director of Diet Coke, for which he designs three limited edition bottles and an advertising campaign in which he appears, photographed by Stéphane Sednaoui. Designs costumes for the Opéra Orchestre National de Montpellier’s presentation of the opera The Marriage of Figaro, directed by Jean-Paul Scarpitta. Designs the Jean Paul Gaultier par Lelievre collection of decor fabrics and accessories.

2013
Designs the costumes for Swedish comedienne Petra Mede, who hosts the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest. Creates the stage costumes for Mylène Farmer’s Timeless 2013 tour, as well as for Amanda Lear in the play Divina. Receives GQ Germany’s Man of the Year Award in the Fashion category.

2014
Designs a collection that includes women’s and children’s wear as well as lingerie to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Scandinavian fashion chain Lindex. In collaboration with Designers Against Aids, creates a collection for bag and luggage maker Eastpak. Designs two costumes for Kylie Minogue’s Kiss Me Once world tour. Jean Paul Gaultier ends his prêt-à-porter lines to focus on haute couture, fragrance and various special projects.