THE A–Z GUIDE TO JEAN PAUL GAULTIER (2025)

The designer was born in 1952 to a middle-class family of a secretary and a bookkeeper and was raised in a dull suburb of Paris. As a child, he watched his grandmother, a faith healer, read the fortunes of her clients through tarot cards and then give them fashion makeovers to relieve their ailments. Call mémé the harbinger of young Gaultier’s love for clothes.
At the age of 17, he sent out his resume to fashion houses he respected and landed a job with Pierre Cardin, a king courtier, who hired Gaultier at only 18. He later went on to do stints at Jacques Esterel and Jean Patou before launching his self-funded label in 1976—accumulating $12,000 of debt in the process. He showed bracelets made out of cat food cans and men in chiffon. Editors didn’t quite get him. It wasn’t until 1978, when the Japanese manufacturer firm Kashiyama backed his collections, that Gaultier was able to develop his label. The rest was history: Gaultier went on to put men in skirts—a contentious decision at the time—launched a series of diffusion lines, self-funded his haute couture endeavor, and put on a theatrical retrospective. Oh, and he held an exhibition of his greatest hits made completely out of bread. The world seen through Gaultier-tinted glasses has never looked better or more expansive.

ACTIVISM

BIRKIN

Who would have thought that the enfant terrible of fashion, best known for sticking his models with piercings and fake tattoos, would be responsible for making the Birkin what it is now? Gaultier, who at his label made denim totes, nylon backpacks, and a very glam corset bag, ventured into luxury carryalls when he became the creative director of French megahouse Hermès in 2004. (He sold 35 percent of his own company to Hermes in 1999.) Unlike his predecessor, Martin Margiela, Gaultier sent his Hermès pieces down the runway. His creations included the shoulder Birkin—the only Birkin that can be worn on the shoulder thanks to its large handles—and a fully black matte crocodile Birkin. One of his most lusted-after bags is the Niloticus crocodile Himalaya Birkin, which debuted on the spring 2010 runway.

COUTURE

DAMES

The ladies love Gaultier, including two French women who are perpetually perched in his front row: actress Catherine Deneuve and filmmaker Farida Khelfa. Deneuve has long been a supporter of the designer and reportedly wears Gaultier the most (after Saint Laurent). Typically photographed next to Denueve is Khelfa, who modeled for Gaultier in his early days during the late ’70s.

EUROTRASH

THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997)

Gaultier was no stranger to outfitting cinema, including The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), Kika (1993), and La Mala Educación (2004), to name a few. But his most well-known film was The Fifth Element (1997) directed by Luc Besson. The science-fiction blockbuster is set in the year 2263 and follows Leeloo (a then 19-year-old Milla Jovovich) and cabdriver Korben Dallas (a hunky Bruce Willis) as they attempt to save humanity from galactic calamity. Gaultier designed the characters’ costumes with his signature cheek: the bodacious flight attendants’ kinky dresses (“It’s a little change from what they are wearing on Air France,” he told Entertainment Weekly), the villain Zorg’s (Gary Oldman) rubberized brown pinstripe vest, DJ diva Ruby Rhod’s (Chris Tucker) leopard print catsuit, and an extra’s ball gown made entirely from Plexiglass. “Leeloo is girded for battle in the costumes of Jean-Paul Gaultier [sic], who outdid himself in dreaming up strappy kinkwear for even the film’s minor characters,” wrote Janet Maslin in the New York Times review of the film in 1997. “If Mr. Gaultier is to be believed—and he’s as credible as anything else here—white could be a big new color in bondage regalia, and even airline employees of the future will be ready for streetwalking without skipping a beat.” In other words, it was Gaultier’s world and we were just watching it. As for Leeloo’s white bandage bodysuit? That was supposedly made on the fly but don’t call it cheap: Gaultier’s tailors told Besson that one outfit would cost $50,000.

“GLOBAL VILLAGE CHIC”

The term was first used in the August 1994 issue of Vogue to describe Gaultier’s spring 1994 show and its confluence of cultures. But the term taps into Gaultier’s mindset on a macro level: The designer took inspiration from practically everything and everywhere. He sought out inspiration from Inuits, Hasidic Jews, Masai tribes, and Geishas. He looked to regions like Mongolia and Southeast Asia. Religion came into play, whether that was a group of models dressed as saucy nuns or the sound of Islamic chants as models walked the runway. While many of Gaultier’s designs would never have a chance of surviving in today’s climate, he has always insisted that he was appreciative of the cultures that inspired him. “All embracing love and curiosity about the planet,” he said in a backstage interview about another multicultural show, in fall 1995.

HASIDIM

IMELDA MARCOS

During Gaultier’s stint at Cardin, the house sent him to the Philippines to the House’s boutique in Manila where he eventually dressed the country’s First Lady Imelda Marcos, who was known for her lavish garb, including 4,200 pairs of shoes. (She was eventually convicted on corruption charges.) Gaultier later described Marcos as “a horror.”

JUNIOR GAULTIER

Gaultier was the master of diffusion lines, which included Soleil, Jeans, and, of course, the most democratic iteration: Junior. Gaultier created the Junior diffusion line in 1988 for his younger fans who could not quite afford his mainline pieces. While Gaultier noted the lower-priced line wasn’t a money-grab—and was in fact more accurately a genuine creation out of love so that club-going young things could have a (mesh) piece of the fun—the move solidified him within the fashion industry as someone who could walk the tightrope of creative and commercial success. In 1991, the little line made a big $120 million. Vogue noted in its April 1994 issue, “If you’re a dominatrix and want to dress like one, Junior Gaultier is not for you,” but it did also say the biggest bang for the buck was “a short-sleeved rayon ($140) made of a print fabric inspired by old medical textbooks.”

KILTS & SKIRTS

Gaultier’s kilt is practically soldered to the designer. Perhaps his love for the garment stems from the spring 1985 show, “A Wardrobe for Two,” when the designer introduced the skirts that were worn by both men and women. The decision was a hairy one. The New York Times reported blowback from department store owners: VP of Barneys Gene Pressman said “we’d have to shave our legs,” while the then-owner of the boutique Charivari Selma Weiser claimed they were “disgusting.”Regardless of criticism, Gaultier sang the praises of gam-baring: “Masculinity doesn’t come from clothes. It comes from something inside you,” he told the Times. “Men and women can wear the same clothes and still be men and women. It's fun.” (He was lighthearted about gender and clothes: He joked that his white Catholic communion was his first dress.) As for Gaultier’s kilts, he was always seen in one, even flashing his shins in the tartan swathe in 2000 at Madonna’s wedding to Guy Ritchie in Scotland. His co-host on Eurotrash Antoine de Caunes asked him to wear his kilt “to show off his big hairy legs and stay sexy” and encourage their flirty banter. By now, the kilt—as well as skirts—have become synonymous with the Gaultier brand itself.

LIVE TURKEY

Always one to make an eccentric statement, Gaultier once sent a live turkey to a Parisian editor who criticized his designs.

MADONNA

NENEH CHERRY

Singer Neneh Cherry of “Buffalo Stance” fame was once a Gaultier muse and made a cameo in his spring 1990 show, where she sprouted up from the stage on a rotating disc, wearing a pair of lime green capri spandex, a nuclear tangerine jacket, and matching shorts.

ODILE GILBERT

The French hairstylist has been a longtime tress master behind Gaultier. While she has long worked the many crowns of supermodels, one of her hairstyle creations for JPG is counted among her most important. The top hat made of black human hair she made for the haute couture fall 2007 show has found a place at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. There’s a trompe l’oeil feature that Gilbert was instrumental in executing, wherein the curved brim of the hat morphs into a bang, blending with the model’s actual hair to create a surreal look-twice visual.

PIERRE CARDIN

Gaultier had no formal training in fashion but at 17, he sent his sketches off to courtiers who he respected: Cardin, Courrèges, Saint Laurent, and Ungaro. In an interview with The New York Times in 1986, the designer recalled how on his eighteenth birthday, he received a call from Cardin asking him when he could work. The young Gaultier lasted a year as Cardin’s assistant before he moved on to two short stints with the couture houses of Jacques Esterel and Jean Patou.

QUERELLE (1982)

Besides a kilt, Gaultier is typically wearing some version of a striped French sailor shirt. (He reportedly owns 365 versions.) The inspiration stems from his love of mariners during his childhood but also the garb of the buff sailor Georges Querelle in the arthouse classic Querelle (1982), adapted for the screen by the German maverick Rainer Werner Fassbinder from the scandalous Jean Genet novel. The stripes have become an integral part of Gaultier’s designs, which he remixes with sensuality, adding a low scoop neck or turning it into a tank top.

ROSSY DE PALMA

The Spanish actress—known as “the nose”—was a longtime Gaultier muse. The peculiar beauty walked numerous shows across the decades, including fall 1994’s “Les Tatouages” and the spring 2014 cabaret show. “Rossy de Palma is one of my muses, let’s say. And she’s a character, she’s like herself, like a Picasso, you know her face. I like her dimensions, she’s art in real life,” Gaultier told Vogue Archives Editor Laird Borrelli-Persson in 2020. The actress-model was originally discovered by filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar in a Madrid cafe. De Palma later starred in many of Almodóvar’s films, including Kika (1993), which Gaultier also costumed.

SCENT

LES TATOUAGES

Piercings! Mesh tattoo tops! Head jewelry! The spring 1994 “Les Tatouages” show was one of the most fabulous examples of Gaultier’s love of multiculturalism. The show was described by Vogue as “a startling vision of cross-cultural harmony”; a melange that was an inside peek into the designer’s curious brain. There were Eastern influences, like Turkman style jewelry, heaps of necklaces inspired by the African Masai tribe, facial piercings, and tribal tattoos on the hands and stomach; while the West permeated through sheer tattoo stocking tops printed with dollar and ruble signs, eighteenth-century silhouettes plucked from a French court, and “Joan of Arc” armor. “It was not only about that primitive thing, but also about decoration. I like the idea of the body as a piece of art, to change your body, like with tattoos,” Gauliter told the New York Times about the piercings, which seemed to speak to a larger theme. “It is the punk influence, but is also something spiritual.” Even large hoop earrings were adorned with dangling charms of religious icons.

UNDERBELLY

The seedy word used to describe Gaultier in a New York Times article in 1989 by Bernadine Morris. “This is the seamy underbelly of fashion, but there are indeed directions,” wrote Morris, describing what she had seen on the runway, which included zippers that “looked like chains,” chaps that exposed the buttocks, as well as “a man cross-dressing.” While this was just one review, there were plenty of similar critiques from members of the press who just didn’t quite understand the outré designer.

VICTOR VASARELY

The archival pieces seen ’round the world hail from the fall 1995 “Cyberbaba” collection, which featured hulking colorful spheres. The graphic was inspired by Hungarian-French optical art painter Victor Vasarely. The imagery was a hit and soon appeared in the collections of Christian Lacroix and Rifat Ozbek. Years later, the head-turning cyberdot pieces have become catnip to celebrities, like Kim Kardashian and Cardi B. While the original runway pieces might fetch into the high thousands, JPG reissued the looks under the helm of Florence Tétier in 2022.

WESTERN BAROQUE

Leopard print cowboy hats. Lurex chap shorts with matching gloves. More chaps with flares exposing lace clad bums. Gaultier’s spring 1989 show, titled “Western Baroque,” was an incredible declaration of his love for his signature trifecta: tongue-in-cheek high fashion, theatrics on the runway, and menswear with a risqué edge.

X FACTOR

Jean Paul Gaultier certainly has the X factor—or rather, the collaboration factor. The JPG brand has collaborated with smaller labels like Y/Project—who could forget when creative director Glenn Martens reimagined Gaultier’s fall 1995 bodyprint pieces into viral reissues—as well as massive forces like Supreme, which birthed the ever-popular “FUCK RACISM” graphic jeans that were based on Gaultier’s fall 1997 “FIGHT RACISM” graphics. A common thread? Each brand puts their spin on JPG.

YEAST

Talk about complex carbs. In 2004, Gaultier showed an exhibition titled “Pain Couture” (pain meaning “bread” in French) for the Cartier Foundation, and it gave new meaning to “upper crust.” The designer put the starch into his signatures—the ballistic bra he made for Madonna was now crafted out of baked spiral loaves with singed tips (or nips), and, as a nod to his position at Hermès, a Kelly bag loaf. There was also a shift dress made out of varying slices of bread, the skirt of one bodacious gown had an aggressive legion of baguettes, while a wig fit for Marie Antoinette was formed from brioche and croissants. The waitstaff were leggy models in white chef hats who carried baguettes in their wood bread basket bustles. Saying that if he wasn’t a designer, he’d be a baker, Gaultier told the New York Times, “I love the sensuality of bread, its roundness—there is something sexual and womanly about it.” And to think, at the time, Gaultier was on a bread-free diet.

ZANY

Yes, Jean Paul Gaultier is zany. The best example is not necessarily in his designs, but rather a CNN Style interview from his spring 1995 collection that he held at the Musée des Arts Forains, which was filled with carnival art, including marionettes and wax figures. During his interview with the news station, Gaultier insisted that he would be filmed in an antique magic box that gave the effect of his head floating in a vase of flowers. “It’s fashion magic!” he told reporters. Certainly an outré interview, but it’s that exact boldness that led Gaultier to redefine design.

Liana Satenstein is a Brooklyn-based fashion writer. She worked at Vogue for almost nine years, covering a number of topics, from trends in Eastern Europe to the resurgence of the Balenciaga City bag. She also helps people cleanse their closets.

• Date: May 22, 2024
• By: Liana Satenstein
• Photographed by: Nick Barr
• Archivist & Creative Consultant: Steve Karas from House W NYC