In anticipation of the upcoming Costume Institute exhibition, “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” we’ve digitized collections from which pieces were selected for the show or catalog. This collection was presented in March 1994, in Paris.
Jean Paul Gaultier was one of the first designers to grasp the importance of technology to the future of fashion; he presented his Fall 1995 “Cyber” collection far in advance of full-blown Y2K hysteria. The standout looks from this extremely long and varied lineup are the sleek, futuristic dot-printed bodysuits. Designed on a computer, color gradients were used to suggest the form of a woman, dressed in a bra and thong. This print was a sort of evolution of his tattoo body suits, which have recently been rediscovered by Kim Kardashian West. Singer Charli XCX has also photographed in some of the cyber separates. Decades before this, Irving Penn photographed model Irina Pantaeva in a hooded Lycra style for a Vogue story on in-line skating.
Gaultier, observed writer Georgina Howell at the time, “applies the imaging and technical advances of sportswear’s body hype, uses attention grabbers the way he does for rock musicians, and transposes finishes from one field to another.” It’s not for nothing that Vogue dubbed the designer “the maestro of mayhem.” For this collection, the field Gaultier most deeply mined was cinema. Fall 1995 is often referred to as his Mad Max show, though, he told Tim Blanks backstage, it would be more accurate to say “Mad Maxette.” The collection was intended for an Amazonian woman who is, said the designer, “courageous, confident, and very much in control of her life.” The femme-centricity of it all was emphasized by the inclusion of not one, but two, heavily pregnant models: Claudia Huidobro and Estelle Lefébure.
The show, which was mobbed, was held in a dark industrial space and opened, in true Mad Max fashion, in a cloud of smoke through which a motorcycle roared. (It’s interesting to note that this collection is resurfacing as the dystopic film turns 40.) One of the black leather-clad riders got off and scrambled furtively up the surrounding scaffolding. That was just the appetizer. Model Carmen Dell’Orefice paraded down the runway with a hawk on her wrist and the finale featured models in padded nylon gowns who held hairdryers that inflated their matching headdresses. This pure camp pandemonium is signature Gaultier.
The collection wasn’t all fun and games though. As the 20th century drew to a close many designers were preoccupied with the collision of past and present, Gaultier included. Fall 1995 included many a nod to earlier times. There were redingotes cut in black leather and Renaissance velvets with trimmings embroidered in a microchip pattern. Those finale pieces, by the way, were as curvy as a 19th-century demimondaine (or Mae West). As usual, this was Gaultier forging his own path, and letting his freak-flag fly, fanned by the roar of a motorcycle engine—and the gusts emitted from a gaggle of hairdryers.
