Newspaper Article

JEAN PAUL GAULTIER My teddy bear was my first fashion muse

Morton, Camilla

2014

Overview

It seems fitting that [Jean Paul Gaultier]'s exhibition hits London before being shown in his home town of Paris (it's slated for the Grand Palais next year), as the UK capital remains a huge source of inspiration and fascination. \"I should say London is very important for me, for many reasons,\" Gaultier states, almost seriously. \"One, I only realise now ... because of my grandfather. His mother was English ... maybe this influence my future relations with England, because you know, 'e was 'alf English? He was quite fascinating in reality, I regret not to have taken more time speaking with him but I was eight when he died.\" Gaultier sparkles as he speaks, like an animated seven-year-old, perhaps trying to gain praise from an austere grandfather. \"But I am very proud I have a leetle part of 'Roast Beef'.\" '.\" He laughs, and laughs. Tattoos are an unconventional, but immediately recognisable, trademark of the house of Gaultier. He even titled a much-copied collection Les Tatouages in 1994 -- and they feature heavily in the hallowed halls of the Barbican. As does another classic Gaultier code, possibly the most recognisable of all: the corset. You may think Madonna and her conical breasts, but the Barbican goes one better, featuring the first-ever Gaultier corset, crafted by a pre-teen Jean Paul for his teddy bear -- Nana Bear. \"He's a star! He see the world, he's more important than me now!\" Gaultier says of Nana. \"Fashion express me, so this is the most intimate part of myself, my first creation, my first muse,\" he peels with laughter at the thought. \"You will see the state it's in, it's a monster! I was taking the powder of my grandmother and putting powder on the teddy bear and the lipstick, but it didn't stay. \" The road from Nana to Madonna was simple, it seems. \"The time of the 'I burn my bra' was past, it was more like 'I want to have that, not because we are obliged, but we want to be seductive',\" declares Gaultier, of the post-feminist reclamation of the raiments of a boned and bombasted fashion past. \"I went to New York and saw a show set in the backstage of a Thirties cabaret. They were all with corsets, all deshabille, and it reminds me the corset that I saw with my grandmother ...\" -- she was a beautician and masseur, so it's less weird than it sounds. Madonna wore \"one of my corsets from 1985, for the premier Susanna Seeking (Desperately Seeking Susan) ... et voila, she wore with men's suspender instead of shoulder straps -- mixing men and women. She was into corsetry, she asked to Frederick's of 'Ollywood the 'Who's That Girl' tour and I think, please, she should better ask me because truly it's my speciality and I love it.\" He throws his hands up, \"Et, then, voila! She did.\"

• Publisher: Independent News & Media
• Subject: Gaultier, Jean Paul