Jean Paul Gaultier put on his show tonight in the 17th's Salle Wagram, a venue that is for all intents and purposes his historical home, where he presented some of the most famous and memorable collections of the eighties and nineties. Location is everything, as they say, and this one would seem to suggest that Gaultier and his newish investors, Spain's Puig Group, are eager to recapture some of the frisson of the designer's glory years—around the time when Madonna and the pointy bras he made for her launched him into fashion superstardom.
The crowd that gathered tonight was certainly rooting for Gaultier. A fan near our seat whooped it up from beginning to end. But reigniting brand JPG will require more than the handful of studded leather bustier tops he opened the show with. Perhaps expectations are too high. Gaultier proposed not only those newfangled cone shirts but a jumble of other ideas, as well: hoods, leather and fur tippets, quilting, and patchwork. He leaned most heavily on a logo print featuring big red block letters and models in silhouette that was reproduced on the scrim behind the runway. It turned up on everything from a slouched-on sack dress to floor-scraping pleated skirts to intarsia fur jackets and coats. Really, a logo print? If he's made it this far without one…
Gaultier was a pot-stirrer back in the day. This collection didn't venture anything more provocative than the use of all that fur. Instead, he cycled through some familiar beats—the trench, the duster coat, leather jackets, modified marinière stripes—without ever really connecting the dots. A stricter edit would've helped matters, and it's more than likely that there's less fussy stuff back in the showroom that will sell in the stores. But that doesn't stop this show from being more than a bit disappointing.
