Jean Paul Gaultier’s Movie Magic

John Paul Gaultier sports an easygoing charm. It’s the sort of trait possessed by a generation of creatives who came up in a world where real-life impressions were of utmost importance long before that term became a quantifiable metric. Yet the fundamental inspirations that compelled him to dedicate his life to fashion design sprung from the spectacle of film and television, formative influences during his childhood in the southern suburbs of Paris.

‍

“CinéMode,” a new exhibition at SCAD FASH Lacoste, explores this entanglement, highlighting specifically how global cinema saw unprecedented vibrancy and creativity in its post-war decades. Working alongside Matthieu Orléan and Florence Tissot, the designer served as guest curator for the show, which was organized in collaboration with La Cinémathèque française and “La Caixa” Foundation.

‍

The show’s location, at SCAD’s idyllic hilltop campus in Lacoste in Provence, France, holds particular significance: The medieval commune was formerly the residence of Pierre Cardin. In 1970, the late avant-garde designer took a teenage Gaultier under his wing, bringing him on as an assistant despite his lack of formal training. What’s more, Cardin, who lived in the lavishly renovated chateau once inhabited by the notorious Marquis de Sade up until his death in 2020, had a central role in the town’s extensive revitalization. 

Branded by the fashion system throughout his life as its enfant terrible, Gaultier admits now he never intended to cause a stir—though he isn’t exactly mad about it. “I am proud of all this controversy,” he says.

‍

The designer’s past is one of humble beginnings. Born in 1952 in the small town of Arcueil, Gautier caught the 1945 film Falbalas, which chronicles the inner workings of a Paris couture house, on TV at the age 13. “I didn’t go to fashion school. My school was that movie,” he remembers, citing that the film consolidated “everything” that inspired him about fashion. “It was very romantic, but dramatic at the same time.” A climatic fashion show scene, he describes, crystallized his personal aspirations, embodying an intoxicating mix of theatrics and fashion to a young Gaultier. “It was what I wanted to do,” he says of his infatuation with cinematic portrayal of the profession. 

‍

Appropriately, a projection of Falbalas opens his new show in Lacoste. Directly to the left is one of Gaultier’s later Haute Couture designs, from his 1999 collection Divine Jacqueline inspired by Countess Jacqueline de Ribes; the same look doubles as an homage to the styles in the French film: a sleek, black button-down suit vest on top, a voluminous flare of white tulle at the bottom.

‍

To the right of the opening tableau is arguably Gaultier’s most iconic piece: a cone-bra corset from 1989. Made famous by Madonna, who wore a version of it a year later during her Blond Ambition tour, the design is yet another piece that has near Freudian origins for the designer. To wit, Gaultier recalls devising a miniature cone-bra for his childhood teddy bear, Nana. It’s also a hyperbolic spin-off of the more moderately pointed bras commonly worn by 1950s housewives, most certainly the primary adult female role models of the designer’s younger years.

‍

The next room showcases a selection of Gaultier’s hands-on collaborations with filmmakers: Herein appears his costumes for Pedro Almodovar’s 1993 film Kika, the director’s 2004 neo-noir Bad Education, and Luc Besson’s 1997 sci-fi thriller The Fifth Element. Here as well are a few outfits that directly drew inspiration from other popular films: a 2006 Ready-to-Wear menswear skirt suit loosely inspired by circa 1970s James Bond, and a fiery punk number that takes cues from the original 1979 Mad Max, among other instances on view.

A militant, industrial motorcycle getup donned by actress Victoria Abril in Kika too experiments with the form of the bra, reimagining its cups as a pair of metal cages over headlights. Nearby, an eye-catching, nude-colored sequined gown worn by Gael García Bernal in a drag performance in Bad Education features graphic pink nipples and a dark-brown triangle of pubic hair. The designer points to it as one of his favorites in the show: “I quite like that one,” he says. “It’s not nudity. It’s only an extrapolation.”

‍

Gaultier's general interest in reimagining brassieres, he describes, stems from his observations that young, fashionable women had begun wearing exposed bras under jackets, no doubt a backlash to the conservative mindset of the 1950s. “It was girls that were a little more free,” he says. Visible bras, he speculated, weren’t intended to sexually “provoke” men, but rather represented their “choice” in the name of a bold, boundary-pushing fashion statement for the time. His response was envisioning bras and corsets with exaggerated, unorthodox components. “It was always going with what was going on in society, and the mentalities that were changing,” he explains.

‍

Costumes for Bruce Willis’ blue-collar protagonist in The Fifth Element displays accentuated fabric around the groin. (“He was okay with it!” Gaultier cheekily recalls of the actor’s reaction.) Exemplifying the designer’s frequent “eroticization of men,” as Tissot puts it, an orange tank top is skin-tight on the actor in polaroids from a fitting, while even bulky cargo pants accentuate the shape of his lower half.

The concise second floor of “CinéMode” offers a broader glimpse at Gautier’s influences. There are a number of Cardin’s designs on view, including the Cardine, a look made of polyester on which the designer applied heat to create 3-D, geometric patterns around the lower half of a mini-dress. Much of the rest of the space is dedicated to photographer William’s Klein’s film Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?, a 1966 tongue-in-cheek satire of the fashion world. Like Falbalas, the movie features an epic fashion show scene, this one showcasing a series of oversized, sculptural dresses made from sheet metal. To fully realize the glamorous absurdity of the scene, Klein turned to the Baschet brothers to devise the comically impractical yet striking metal looks, two of which are displayed on mannequins in Lacoste. “I love it, even if it is ridiculous at times,” says Gaultier of the satire. “There are a lot of ridiculous things that we love. It is sarcastic, which is good. We need critics.”

‍

Gaultier certainly inherited from Klein a sharp eye for interpreting the zeitgeist of creative subcultures. His process simply mirrors the organic inner workings of his mind, interpreting the extremes of his milieu and Gaultier-fying them, before unveiling the often zany results, all the while impervious to attention they did or didn’t garner. “I didn’t do it for the purpose of only having people speak about me,” he says. “I did it because I was feeling that society was quite changing. So it was only a reflection of what was happening.” But seeing a mix of his best-loved along with his most off-the-wall, creative designs intended for the silver screen, all in the flesh? Their dizzying, surreal physical impact leaves an indelible impression.

‍

“CinéMode par Jean Paul Gaultier” is on view until September 30, 2024 at SCAD FASH Lacoste at Rue Basse, 84480 in Lacoste, France.