Jean Paul Gaultier’s Next Fashion Show Will Be His Last

Fleur Burlet

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PARIS — Jean Paul Gaultier is taking his last bow.

The 67-year-old French fashion designer posted a message on Twitter announcing that his next couture show, scheduled for Jan. 22, would be his last.

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“This show celebrating 50 years of my career will also be my last. But rest assured Haute Couture will continue with a new concept,” the designer tweeted.

The designer added a video to his tweet, in which he is seen chatting on the phone in French.

“I invite you to celebrate my 50 years in fashion at the Théâtre du Châtelet,” Gaultier said. “It’s going to be quite a party with many of my friends, and we’re going to have fun until very, very late.”

“It will be my last Gaultier Paris show,” he continued. “Be there! You can’t miss this.”

He added that despite no longer showing, “Gaultier Paris will go on.

“The Haute Couture continues. I have a new concept, I’ll tell you about it later…All the little secrets. To be continued!”

In 2014, the designer already scaled back his business by stopping his ready-to-wear collections to focus on couture and beauty.

One of France’s most iconic fashion figures, Gaultier started his company in 1976, and catapulted the French capital’s reputation for fashion in the Eighties alongside fellow fashion mavericks Claude Montana and Thierry Mugler.

After sketching designs for his mother and grandmother as a teenager, including one of a coat he invented with rucksack closures, he dispatched his portfolio to Pierre Cardin, who engaged him as a design assistant for two years. Gaultier also worked for Jacques Esterel and Jean Patou before launching his signature rtw with a subversive streak and a streetwise edge.

He established his beauty business in 1991, joined the couture calendar in 1997 and launched an accessories division in 2000.

In October 2018, Gaultier staged his first stage production, “Fashion Freak Show,” which opened at the Folies Bergère. Described as falling “somewhere between a revue and a fashion show,” the show, based on Gaultier’s life story, captured key moments of his career: the first time he laid eyes on a corset (in his grandmother’s wardrobe); being hired as Pierre Cardin’s studio assistant at 18; his first fashion show, and the unveiling of his first man skirt in his spring 1984 Boy Toy collection.

Read more from WWD:

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WATCH: Inside Fashion Freak Show —Jean Paul Gaultier’s Over-the-Top Paris Fashion Week Event

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