Fashion values became front and center when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC opened Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, showing through to July 16. Last week I wrote about a Dolce and Gabbana dress. This week I received a request for the value of another fashion designer’s piece, a Jean Paul Gaultier jacket. We see a woman’s fancy men’s tux coat on the frontside, a shiny silk vest which stops at the waist on the back. This one jacket sums up a few key elements of the Gaultier style: gender-fluid, yet fetishizing, obsessed with images of gender power, a severely cut men’s jacket for women.
We remember his conical pointed bras under men’s style jackets/and skirts and corsets for men. Also his humor, classic formal wear at the front, party at the back, a thumbed nose at anything classic. He named his signature perfume, in a bottle depicting a nude female torso in one of his corsets, CLASSIQUE (1993); The perfume represented anything but classical.
Gaultier Began Designing in 1976
Gaultier became known as the bad boy of fashion, perhaps because of his lack of education in design, art, or fashion. He pulled his design ideas from many sources, all scandalous at the time. He dressed his models in outré styles but used common females. His models came from his friends, his staff, using over 60-something women, women of color in the 70s, plus sized women. Sometimes he spotted women that appealed to him on the street on the day of a runway show.
He loved each body type of female, but Gaultier admired the erotic power of the hourglass shape of the 1940s. For PRIDE 2023 he made a version of his perfumes Classique and Le Male in chrome bottles. They depict both gender’s nude torso modeled, each wearing a tee-shirt that states: “Get Used to It.” This celebrates the LGBTQIA community, as his website explains.
His Most Iconic Designs
The corset and the pointy cone bra became his major influences. Lampooning and capitalizing at the same time the definition of “sexy,” he redefined provocative clothing. He used sex to sell, yet he designed for women (Madonna) who loved his clothing for its celebration of the POWER of sex. A great example of this is his corsets displayed on the OUTSIDE of the garment.
His grandmother Marie owned a beauty salon in suburban Paris in the 1930-40s. Jean Paul loved her greatly and her admiration of feminine flounces and corsets. He also loved the Folies Bergère. He’s quoted as saying, “As long as your spirit is strong, you can show off your body!” Indeed he respected confident, powerful, unconventional females. “When the breasts pierce the jacket, it is Power and Femininity combined,” he said.
I watched a number of his runway shows on YouTube from the 1980s and 1990s. Prescient lies in the diverse influences and bodies: Gaelic, African, Classic French, Burlesque and show girl styles, fetishy masculine Greta Garbo, black clad women with gorgeous female forms wearing men’s suits and hats.
Twenty years ago in NY I saw a burlesque show performed by the beautiful Dita Von Teese, costumes by Gaultier. She wore a conical bra beautifully with her boyfriend Marilyn Manson in the front row. I also saw Donna Summers perform in a Gaultier biker jacket with a tutu ages ago. Gotta love Gaultier’s Macho Chic style, and his corset fetish. He said, “the corset is not an object of submission but a powerful manifesto of ultra femininity.”
His style continues to be youthful:
I noticed at the May 2023 MET gala, Gaultier dressed a celebrity in a bespoke gown created by one of his protégés, a young designer he chose to redefine his art form for 2023.
He also broke mold in the people he dressed: stage and screen couture for Madonna, Mylene Farmer, Kylie Minogue, costumes for films by Pedro Almodóvar, Luc Besson, and Jean Pierre Jennet. Today he designs for Dua Lipa, Christine and the Queens, Lil Nas X, Kim Kardashian, and Rosalia.
1970-1990s fashion is HOT in the market as great designers are now celebrated as artists. The jacket is valued at $300.