“Life is a butterfly! So all the collection is that!” explained Jean Paul Gaultier during a preview on the eve of his couture show, which used the simple metaphor and seemingly single idea to build a collection that proved to be brimming with playful reinterpretations of those winged beauties and rich with inventive technique and craftsmanship.
The collection opened with “Les Papillons Noirs”—chic black suits in Gaultier’s signature 1940s manner with pencil skirts or cigarette pants. Those shapely jackets, however, had necklines or revers that morphed and unfurled into fluttering wings—sometimes echoed in the stand-away silhouette of the skirt’s pocket flaps.
A satin organza blouse with wind-flapped batwing sleeves was paired with a sleek black skirt, and lacquered lace with an abstracted butterfly motif was used for siren sheath dresses.
Gaultier dubbed his girls the “Papillons de Paris,” and those chic ladies were soon transformed to reflect another aspect of the City of Light: “By night, she becomes a showgirl!” laughed Gaultier who, to emphasize his point, dressed burlesque diva Dita Von Teese in a Mr. Pearl corseted creation, drawing all eyes to her hand-span wasp waist. The elaborate evening looks were crowned with Folies Bergère–style plumed headdresses that bobbed along like fanciful insect antennae.
Some gowns had panniers suggesting a cocoon, while others seemed trapped within a lepidopterist’s net—playful ideas that belied the workmanship behind them. One such coat, for example, required 600 meters of silk tulle laboriously twisted into cords of graduated thickness that were then woven together to create the illusion of a catcher’s mesh. There was more netting in overscale embroiderer’s canvas, painstakingly worked with motifs of—yes, you guessed it!
Gaultier used his celebrated draped-jersey technique (developed by the legendary Madame Grès and brought to his atelier by one of her former workroom directors) to suggest those beauteous insects, finishing the wings with bands of airy organza so that they ruffled in the breeze.
Leather was treated with iridescent coating—suggesting the shimmering wings of a morpho butterfly, or the scarab shells that were used to embroider a pale tulle cardigan suit. A 1920 tango dress was printed in the rich orange patterns of a monarch butterfly, but there was a dark touch of the moth to punk-inspired leather and denim biker jackets, trimmed with custom Swarowski studs that glimmered like the aurora borealis.
In Gaultier’s cavernous show space, it was all glittering showtime on the runway, but in the hand these pieces dazzle with the intricacy of their workmanship.
