In a positive sense, the word fashion suggests a new birth. Fashion is the creative results of new costumes that are to usurp old ones. They are the setting of new trends, new ideas born out of the mind, set on paper and then sewn with fabric and the expression of new identities and self-expression in an ever evolving world of people and ideas.
In a negative sense, however, the word fashion can also mean a trend which draws the masses like a flock of sheep. Thoughtlessly people wear its robing to become members of a mass and hide from their true self. In looking like everyone else, joining the 'fashion', there is no danger of attack or danger of misunderstanding, for humanity at its worst has been known to burn those with interesting, new and eccentric ideas. Fashion can become a dreadful snobbery, causing people to judge others because of their 'fashion labels' and making people hide behind their clothes in fear of not being accepted and not having any status or street cred.
For me, the Jean-Paul Gaultier exhibition removed all skeptical doubts about the negative effects of fashion. This creator has defied the dangers of fashion becoming a uniform by embracing lovingly the uniforms themselves. Playfully he creates hybrids of the old traditional fashions with new: taking traditional nationalistic fabrics and flags and transforming them: Scottish tartan, Kente cloth from Ghana, Army kharki, black sado-masochist leather, Russian ermine, native American feathered head dresses.. and these are transformed into garments for the catwalk. There is a sense of celebration of past tradition by merging it with a creative present.
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| Necklace made from bullets and dress made from camoflage army fabric |
Nothing is usurping anything in the world of Jean-Paul Gautier. All is loved, tolerated, enjoyed and celebrated. Gaultier is no dictator. His appreciation of difference, of individuals and uniqueness is what makes him a master. His social preoccupations set him apart. He creates a universe we all want to live in, where he embraces with humour, kindness and artistry a coherent and cosmopolitan world.
Born in 1952, he was inspired at age 6 by the Folies Bergères and dressed his teddy bear in feathered head-dress and a conical bra. By 1980 he started his own company and had introduced his conical breast corsets, his skirts for men, his sailor suits and developed a faith in his own judgement.
Madonna was one of many artists to support him by wearing his clothes. In I992 she posed topless in one of his outfits at Amfar.
The exhibition not only shows the stunning, imaginative costumes that are works of genius that he has produced over the years but includes some extraordinary moving mannequins, who talk and who reflect.
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