There was a crepe stand at the top of the stairs. A foghorn and the sound of gulls marked the start of the show. And the first few looks out featured blue-and-white marinière stripes. We were at the seaside in Brittany. Jean Paul Gaultier has taken his audience on similar trips over the course of his nearly 40 years in fashion. You need only see the posters all over Paris advertising the Grand Palais retrospective of his career to know that. In them, a much younger Gaultier sports a marinière stripe vest of his own underneath his tailcoat and bleached pompadour, a lipstick kiss on one cheek. Familiar though this trip may have been, Gaultier had the crowd at "Allô."
The Grand Palais exhibition has served to remind Paris not only of the breadth of Gaultier's career but also of his brilliance. There were flashes of it here. In a spectacular trench made from black coque feathers. In a long black and brilliant yellow velvet dress rendered in a pattern typical of Brittany. By comparison, a crocheted marinière sweater was almost mundane, but there's something about those Breton stripes. They're iconic and irresistible. Peacoats and bombers with fine gold-thread embroidery you find on the costumes of Brittany's bagad bands were also easy to like.
Sure, the show was heavy-handed at times. Anna Cleveland's finale skirt was as circular as a crepe before it's folded over on the griddle, and its diameter spanned the runway. But Cleveland was campy in kind and she made it work.
