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Jean-Paul Gaultier: Gaultier's Magnificent Science
By: Godfrey Deeny
Photos by Gruber-FWD
Paris, Jul 12, 2002/ FWD/ --- Though haute couture is meant to be the great laboratory of
fashion, it was only this morning, on the last day of the Paris season, at Jean Paul Gaultier
that we saw a truly gifted style scientist at work.
Jean Paul might be a little mad cap himself, but his ideas aren't weird.
They are wacky, all right, but wonderful in their sense of humor, outrageous proportion
and ability to breathe new life into the classic garments he touches.
Gaultier is polished albeit perverse. As the workman pulled the plastic off the catwalk of
his rue St. Martin headquarters, the house's president, Donald Potard, took the microphone.
In a conspiratorial voice, he explained that a narrator would recount "a story not suitable
to be heard by young people" over the headphones placed on each guest's seat.
The remark caused a frisson of giggles among the stylish crowd of Sting and Trudie Styler,
Puff Daddy and Dennis Hopper, who mingled among the ladies who lunch led by Betty Lagardere
and Deeda Blair.
"My wife with asbestos buttocks, my wife with a sex of seaweed," intoned the anecdotist in
his best Franglais as the show got underway.
From the opening mannish power suits with drooping shawl collar to an extraordinary Napoleonic
bridal gown there was not a faulty formula in Jean Paul's chemistry class.
His biggest idea was revamping old standards, most especially in the hussar jacket.
He turned it back to forth on one evening column, tripled it in size as the base for his
wedding look and morphed a black version into a black crepe column in an extraordinary look
worn by Carla Bruni.
Other standouts included gentlemanly tails in coffee-colored crocodile, oversized yet always
elegant Raglan coats and oxidized trenches edged with mink.
Adding to the effect, Odile Gilbert outdid herself with bizarre hair extensions that swung
fanlike into the air or multiplied into enormous birds' nests on Restoration molls.
If this season said anything it's that the couture is far from dead, despite dire predictions
following the retirement of Yves Saint Laurent.
Not if there are real artists stretching the definition of fashion like Gaultier,
who's at the height of his game.
How do they say Magna Cum Laude in French?
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