Jean-Paul Gaultier: Deconstruction in Fashion

Posted on June 28, 2012 by emmakpenner

L�enfant terrible of fashion, Jean-Paul Gaultier, was trained in the (not-so-
terrible) �magnificent ruined city�[1] of the haute couture. He was taught in
houses that had once dictated the conventions of elegance, but that had lost their
power: in 1970 he began as an assistant at Pierre Cardin, then worked briefly for
Jacques Esterel, followed by two years at la grande maison Patou, before returning
to Pierre Cardin in 1974. Finally, moving to the metropolis of the avant-garde,
Gaultier presented his first eponymous collection in 1976.
The convergence of traditions has marked Gaultier�s career � the technique of the
haute couture mixed with the style of the street, the use of cultural/historical
references infused with humor � always within the framework of Parisian chic. It is
no wonder that the theoretical framework of deconstruction can be applied to
Gaultier�s oeuvre. Barbara Vinken describes his work as an �ongoing deconstruction
of Paris fashion [as] a kind of surrealism against the grain, which consciously
makes a fool of itself.�[2]
Jean-Paul Gaultier�s Fall/Winter 1993-94 collection, �Les Rabbins Chics,� (figure
1) was inspired by traditional Hasidic men�s clothing. Male and female models wore
Gaultier classics � black trench coats, tailored jackets and long skirts � paired
with religious symbols of the Hasids, including Shtreimel (large fur hats worn on
the Sabbath), Payot (side curls) and imitation Tefillin (boxes worn on the head
that contain scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah),
accompanied by the woeful sounds a solo Klezmer violin. Unsurprisingly, the show
was considered fantastical by some, and an affront by others. In 1993, Rabbi Morris
Shmidman discussed his community�s issues with the collection: �the whole thing is
very offensive. To take men�s mode of clothing and make that into a modish thing
for women is extremely inappropriate in this community.�[3] According to the Rabbi,
what was improper about the collection was not the appropriation of sacred,
traditional symbols, but rather the reversal of encoded gendered dress. Rabbi
Shmidman�s comments touch on a key element of deconstructionist art, that it
engages the viewer in active decoding of social constraints concealed behind an
aesthetic form.

Figure 1. Les Rabbins Chics, Autumn/Winter 1993-1994

While particular garments in the show were deconstructive, the fashion show and the
styling are what invite the most obvious deconstruction. The juxtaposition of
visual and textual elements � in this case high fashion with religious markers �
produces a critical interrogative exchange. Gautlier�s collection at once
highlights and silences both elements: the fashion is masked by the blatant and
shocking use of Hasidic symbols, while the delicate nature of the Hasidic objects
is called into question by the fashion show context. By appropriating obvious
visual markers of Hasidic men and making them convincing as fashionable clothing on
women, Gaultier�s collection unsettles the idea of an essential religious symbology
and pushes forward the idea of what fashion (and particularly a fashion show) can
accomplish as a form of critical discourse.
Gaultier�s Fall 2006 Menswear collection channeled previous shows, most notably
�Une garde-robe pour deux,� presented in 1985, where models dressed in clothes
designed for the opposite sex, and �Et Dieu cr�a l�homme,� also from 1985, when
Gaultier first introduced the skirt for men. While the collection fell under the
�Menswear� designation, in a Gaultier fashion, the presentation included both male
and female models. Figure 2 illustrates the designer�s playful attitude towards
gendered dress: the female model wears a three-piece suit, while the male model
wears a floor-length skirt and sports long blond hair. The gentle subversion of
gendered dressing establishes a distance from the dominant thinking about gender
and clothing. The collection undermines the �conceptual pairs� that have become so
ingrained in the fashion system: where femininity equals one thing and masculinity
another, opposite thing. We are invited to explore, play with, enjoy and rethink
essentialisms.
Figure 2. Jean-Paul Gaultier, Fall 2006, Menswear Collection
Including women in a menswear show (and vice versa) disturbs the dominance of
womenswear in our current fashion system. From runway shows to magazines, designs
for women are prioritized, while menswear plays a (much quieter) second fiddle. As
in this collection, Gaultier has often tried to tip the scales: �Entirely in this
�courtly� tradition, Gaultier is one of the first to make a fashion for men which
is no less striking and extravagant than women�s fashion. With his work, the
nineteenth-century male renunciation has definitely come to an end. Just like
women, his men wear artificial fur, lurid colors, conspicuous cuts, skintight
leggings. Even the codpiece has been resurrected to display the family jewels in
their old European splendor.� [4] The use of both female and male models disturbs
fashion�s hierarchy, as it challenges and then reasserts the differences between
men�s and women�s fashions as created, rather than inherent.
Gaultier continues to explore deconstruction in his work. His Spring 2003 Couture
show was well received for its �immaculate tailoring, aching beauty and playful
sense of the absurd.�[5] Several pieces in the collection were trompe l�oeil �
shirts and suits appeared to float in front of the model�s body, including the
passe-passe (�trick�) suit (figure 3). This suit jacket appears to hang in
suspension, as if it has been added to this runway image in post-production. The
garment might float away were it not for the placement of the model�s hands on her
hips, �holding� the jacket in place. Interestingly, the suit jacket, with its
nipped in waist and padded hips, is almost identical in silhouette to Christian
Dior�s iconic �Bar� suit. While Dior�s suit required a myriad of underpinnings and
support structures tacked to the body, Gaultier�s garment accomplishes this same
shape by tacking in front of the body (a literal moving forward of the idea of the
jacket). As if to underline the reference to Christian Dior, inside the jacket�s
breast pocket is a sprig of lily-of-the-valley, Dior�s lucky flower.

Figure 3. Jean-Paul Gaultier, Spring 2003, Couture

Gaultier�s suit jacket subverts the automatic link between clothing and coverage,
rethinking that �conceptual pair.�[6] It is the disruption of function that is
deconstructive: �In the act of displacing both norms and function the work is freed
from the reduction they demand. It is no longer an exemplification.�[7] The trompe
l�oeil jacket cannot be dismissed, as fashion so often is, as �just clothes�
because it does not engage in its function as clothing. This refusal to function
reminds that fashion is not just about clothing/cloaking the body and disallows
this overused condemnation of fashion. Gaultier�s jacket expresses both the past
(Dior) and the future, refusing to be relegated to its �natural place� in both
fashion discourse and fashion practice.
Gaultier has often been referred to as a postmodern designer, and certainly his
penchant for mixing genres, styles, and epochs � sometimes without any apparent
goal � betrays him as such. Chenoune likens Gaultier�s postmodern design to �some
surrealist editor, [he] would cut and paste, matching up precisely those things
that did not match� Eclectic mixes of this sort were to become his trademark.�[8]
Insofar as deconstructive ideas involve change and are futural, uncertainty and
even alienation often accompanies them. Gaultier�s work has often offended and
elicited negative reactions. Vinken proclaims �according to the criteria of the
taste that has been lovingly cultivated over centuries, [Gaultier�s] fashion is
completely tasteless,�[9] while Chenoune points out that �Gaultier�s age finds
him�disturbing.�[10] Perhaps this is the kind of outrage and confusion that
accompanies the unveiling of a truly new, deconstructed form.