Jean Paul Gaultier Embroiders With Snow
We’ve shaken the Vogue Runway archive like a snow globe. When the glistening flakes settled, the very best winter wonderland shows were revealed. We’re sharing them, one by one, over eight days. Day seven: Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fall 2017 Couture collection, presented on July 5, 2017, in Paris.
Don’t expect to see Jean Paul Gaultier whooshing past you, scarf flying, on a snowboard in Gstaad anytime soon. Winter sports aren’t much his thing. Still, he managed to get into a “Jack Frost nipping at your nose” kind of spirit for the Fall 2017 couture season. To a soundtrack that included snippets of Frozen’s ballad and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” the couturier delivered a wintry mix with his own signature cross-cultural twist. “It’s a real hot Christmas,” quipped actress Rossy de Palma of Gaultier’s Winter in India collection.
Couture ateliers are generally divided into sections devoted to tailoring and flou; this collection was an exploration of structure as it related to draping, specifically that of the sari, “the most beautiful dress that ever existed,” in the words of the designer. On top of this he layered references to the garb of Tibetan monks, Breton stripes, and a print of the Grand Palais embroidered with “snow.”
Winter Wonderland
The strongest looks in the show were those that directly referenced the winter theme. Reviewer Mark Holgate called out a “slouchy cardigan jacket embellished with blue and white Fair Isle patterns created out of pearls” and “the fairly abbreviated Aran sweaterdress crafted from mousseline ribbons.” A traditional brown and white chunky knit ski sweater was re-created in bronze metal mesh developed especially for the collection.
“It’s like a kind of little fairy tale,” the designer said in an interview with Fashion TV. “Nothing was real; it was all illusion.” Still, underlying the camp elements that spice up Gaultier’s shows was a more serious reflection on the state of the world. “With climate change, all the seasons are becoming mixed up, so what is summer, what is winter, is becoming less and less relevant,” he noted.
