The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier, Barbican

This spring the Barbican collaborates with the avant-garde French designer Jean Paul Gaultier, known as fashion’s ‘Cheshire cat’ for his cheeky grin and witty public persona. You may already recognise his designs, which are famous for their iconoclastic daring. His Virgin Collection plays on byzantine religious iconography, in particular the Madonna: an idea which inspired the way he styled the pop-icon herself throughout the 1980s. 

This show bills itself as a “kaleidoscopic presentation” of his past and present works, displaying 140 cutting-edge couture designs. He’s always attracted the attention of those with an eye for what’s outside the mainstream, so expect to be both seduced and provoked.

Is it art, you might ask. His daring, experimental and genre-redefining approach to design would say yes. In November 2013 the New York Times declared Gaultier a great democratiser of high fashion, crediting him with making it accessible to all at the same time as setting up the industry’s counterculture. He’s also widely acknowledged as a fashion revolutionary: for changing not only the way clothes are made and worn, but also subverting traditional takes on what our clothes say about gender and beauty. 

The exhibition presents him as a social commentator and activist. One of the first openly gay designers, he brought his Man Skirt to the catwalk in the 80’s and with it stoked vociferous debate as to why men in ‘women’s’ clothing should stir controversy: an idea later refracted through the discourse of feminists e.g. Judith Butler. Let it never be said that Gaultier wasn’t ahead of his time.

Gaultier has often said London is a special city to him, it being the first place to accept him artistically, and with its innovative, brutalist design the Barbican Centre is a wonderful location for this show. Gaultier has previously claimed to associate museums with the funereal quality of deceased artists, so expect this exhibition to feel alive, with the personality of the man himself running through it. Our top picks of the show: the famous conical bras that featured in Madonna’s Blonde Ambition Tour (1990), and the costumes Gaultier designed for Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar in his films Bad Education (2004) and The Skin I Live In (2011).