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Jean Paul Gaultier

PARIS, July 6, 2006
By Tim Blanks
Jean Paul Gaultier showed his men's collection on the day that France met Brazil in the World Cup, and he got a pleasant little frisson from the fact that he was making Brazilian models wear French clothes. The boys from Brazil themselves looked less thrilled—perhaps because they had to contend with rope-soled wedges, troweled-on eye liner, and the most fearsome mullets since Brit glitter band the Sweet last had a hit. Yes, Jean Paul was again mining the glam-rock seam he's returned to more than once in his 30-year career, complete with the odd, no-longer-shocking garter belt or feather boa.

There were sheer fabrics galore (a trenchcoat, for instance, over the kind of baggy, pleated pants that David Bowie—or Katharine Hepburn—would once have worn). Elsewhere though, Gaultier did toughen things up slightly. Delicate voile blousons were overprinted with python or the trompe l'oeil image of a jean jacket, and matching pants were also denim-printed. Trompe effects continued in the necktie knitted into a top. A banknote design printed on cotton trousers had a rock 'n' rococo appeal.

The designer acknowledged sports fever with his own Team Gaultier items. His track pants looked more like harem pants, however, and the striped knee socks would be better-suited to a tween pop tart than a sporting lion. Could it be that Gaultier's gender games are finally becoming a bit of a drag?

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