COMPLETE COLLECTION

PARIS, January 20, 2002

By Stephen Todd

In one of his signature mixings of high and low, Jean Paul Gaultier showed his haute couture collection in his new headquarters, a turn-of-the-century worker's club called L'Avenir du Prolétariat ("the future of the working class").

The designer, as usual, gave each outfit a name. The opener, "Amélie," was a black stretch crepe dress with a transparent polka-dot halter top named for Audrey Tautou's character in the much-loved film. "Place des Abbesses," meanwhile, was a black wool smoking worn wide open across the chest, while "Gay Paree" was a strictly tailored suit with culottes in fine tennis stripes. Gaultier described his collection as being about "a woman who dresses, then heads out for a torrid night," and individual pieces embodied the transformation from daywear into something saucier. A slinky pantsuit has a plunging rear décolleté; a gabardine jacket transforms into a spaghetti-strap dress; a trenchcoat, buttoned tight, mutates into a jaunty champagne-silk dress. By the time cocktail hour arrives, Gaultier's woman is living it up in a shiny silk Jacquard peignoir, a denim corset cut back to the boning and finished with long fringe sleeves, or a long red tressed dress that goes from fine-weave at the bust to wide and chunky at the knee, finally exploding in a blur of chiffon. Or she might simply settle for "Can Can": a pom-pom of flesh-colored tulle tied at the waist with a black velvet bow.

Backstage, Gwyneth Paltrow, in an emerald-green Gaultier cheongsam top, declared the show "fantastic." Andrée Putman uttered "merveilleux," and Mouna Al-Ayoub cooed, "I'm speechless—and that doesn't happen too often!"