Editor’s Note: Since Jean Paul Gaultier’s retirement from the runway, each season the house invites a new guest designer to create a couture collection inspired by the designer’s incredible archive. Ahead of Julien Dossena’s debut show, we look back at Gaultier’s newly digitized fall 2000 couture presentation. This show was originally presented in July 2000 in Paris.
Jean Paul Gaultier, French fashion’s perpetual “enfant terrible” didn’t live up to the reputation when it came to his fall 2000 couture collection, which was très soigné and paid respect to the traditions of the metier. Model Sylvia van der Klooster recalls that the looks were announced with numbers, as in the old days. “It was my first time meeting Jean Paul,” she recalls, “and he was, and always has been, the most kind, cheerful, and interesting designer. He told me I looked like Isabelle Adjani at the fitting (I had to look her up, I remember).” It was another French icon, however, the striking Kiki de Montparnasse, muse to avant-garde artists, who was depicted on the garments. A few flapper-like dresses nodded to the period of her heyday.
In contrast to the theatricality of John Galliano’s collection for Christian Dior featuring naughty nurses and Marie Antoinette—all great fun—Gaultier created sophisticated, grown-up clothes that were easy to imagine being worn to a gala event or on a red carpet. They were a substantial meal, rather than dessert (as in let them eat cake), yet there was still fantasy aplenty.
There was glamour and gravitas here; maybe what contributed to the latter was the collection’s singular focus. It was a valentine to Gaultier’s truest and most steadfast love, Paris. He didn’t entirely abandon his ties to punk (note his use of plaid), or the sari, or the trench, but this exploration of many aspects of the City of Light, from dandy to sailor, berets to lovely lace, came complete with an Eiffel Tower dress kitted out with fiber optic lights. That tower, a monument to the industrial revolution, also appeared on hosiery and heels. Gaultier even mapped the neon lights of Pigalle, and in script jewelry and passementerie he spelled out, in letters, his love for the French capital. Stripes marineres, in sequins, winked at the designer’s own uniform.
Public displays of affection are Paris-approved, and some garments featured the image of a kissing couple that looked like it had been pulled from an old movie (another JPG hobby). On a green strapless grown this graphic looks pixelated, which seems apropos. Having survived Y2K, the digital age was underway. Twenty-three years later it looks a lot like glitchcore, non?
