Jean Paul Gaultier: Resort and Menswear 2013.

Previously: Jean Paul Gaultier Couture: Dandies, Decadence, and George Sand.

A Jean Paul Gaultier triple-bill! I probably should've posted these first, as an aperitif to the high-end extravagance of the Couture collection last week, but I got too excited and forgot about them.

The Menswear and Resort collections had far more in common with each other than with the Couture show, both taking inspiration from two of Gaultier's favourite design themes: sailor suits and Indian fashion.

The main thing that impressed me about this collection was that it was so recognisably Gaultier without actually including any of the things that I traditionally think of as Gaultier -- corsetry, drag, and structured eveningwear. Gaultier isn't a designer that I associate with relaxation so it's honestly a bit of a disconnect to realise that he can put out a resort collection that looks wearable, comfortable, and interesting. With most big-name designers, resort collections either turn out looking too extravagant and couture-like (ie, Alexander McQueen) or are little more than high-street clothes with a designer label.

Maybe this is a no-brainer, but I really feel like Gaultier knows how handsome works. A significant proportion of all menswear shows include at least one tux, but Gaultier's slight edge of femininity in the cinch-waisted trousers and short jacket makes his tux stand out from the crowd.

I'm not sure what to think of the turbans. In Western womenswear there's a certain tradition of headwraps and turbans dating back to old Hollywood, but it seems somehow more daring for a man to wear a turban for non-religious purposes? Obviously people wear what they wear for any number of reasons, but I'm pretty sure that Gaultier's inspiration for this collection was explicitly Sikh. Maybe I'm just overly touchy about these things but when clothes have some religious connotation it always makes me a little uncomfortable when they get repurposed as "fashion".

I think these are... kilt shorts? Which sound kinda terrible on paper but turn out to look awesome. Instead of the flat front of a kilt, they split into shorts with a pleated skirt at the back and sailor-buttons at the front, in keeping with Gaultier's perpetual love of sailor suits.

I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS OUTFIT. Black utilikilt? Awesome shoes? Gradated stripes? I wish more guys felt comfortable wearing kilts and skirt-like outfits because this is SUCH a good look.

Of course, it wouldn't be Gaultier if there wasn't a little silliness thrown in as well. When an outfit is made up of nothing but stripes, it's practically inevitable that you're going to end up looking like a mime. Or in this case, a turban-wearing sexy sailor mime. I'm sure someone can make it work.  Eugene Hutz, maybe?

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Jean Paul Gaultier Couture: Dandies, Decadence, and George Sand.

This review may be a little on the dodgy side because I wrote it through a veil of tears while pouring chocolate truffles and absinthe directly into my mouth and smoking a cheroot in a ten-inch-long holder. GUYS, I JUST LOVE THIS COLLECTION A LOT, OK. Gaultier's a triple-threat expert in the field of awesome yet faintly ridiculous haute couture, his main failing being the restrictive nature of his influences. This season, as with so many of his previous collections, Gaultier was inspired by Victorian dandies, vintage corsetry, tuxedoes, and classic Indian fashions, but even after thirty years in the public eye he still seems to be able to turn out new ideas for stunning couture.

photos from Style.com

The show opened with Erin O'Connor in a top hat and tails, dressed in an homage to George Sand. Gaultier has long enjoyed playing with gender-roles in his shows and even though his new Menswear collection was revealed only last week, this Couture show included new "menswear couture" items as well as several womenswear outfits worn by male models.

Tanel Bedrossiantz has modeled in over eighty of Gaultier's shows now, and as he ages he seems to grow more and more vampiric in appearance. Tanel commands a certain fearsomeness that can't quite be managed by the younger, prettier male models, which is exactly what Gaultier's shows need -- something to leven the slightly cheesy Moulin Rouge air for which he is so well-known.

It's unclear whether Andrej Pejic's first outfit was from the menswear or womenswear department -- perhaps intentionally so. On one side it was a relatively average dinner-suit, but the other side was completely sheer with an elbow-length leather glove. Even the shape holds no clues, because this season Gaultier almost entirely abandoned his love of corsetry in favour of a looser, more masculine silhouette for the womenswear. Corsets, in fact, were only seen on the men, with slight hourglass silhouettes being added to the suit-jackets through rigid structure-work and clever tailoring.

This collection wasn't so much a celebration of fresh creativity as it was about quality. While dandies and 19th-century decadence are by no means a new topic in the world of high-end fashion, a show like this proves that Gaultier can provide consistent excellence without resorting to gimmickry.

 Current mood: desperate to wear these iridescent grey velvet trousers and green shoes:

This is the kind of textured, luxurious couture work that makes me miss Christian Lacroix.

The one low point of the show was, for me, this purple tailcoat modeled by Erin O'Connor. It's a little too 1970s Vegas magician compared to the 19th-century sumptuousness of the rest of the collection.

The eveningwear ran from late nineteenth to early 20th century, with some outfits almost reaching flapper proportions. Fortunately the styling was such that most of the gowns didnt fall into the period-movie costume trap, although the colour scheme did remain securely in vintage tones of red, gold, and pale blue-green.

In among the out-and-out period pieces were some outfits that were harder to define, but no less beautiful for it. One of the things this season really made me appreciate was Gaultier's ability to balance a show: not too many costumey pieces, but enough that the collection seemed to vary widely from beginning to end. While the tuxedo-inspired suits (for both men and women) were relatively recogniseable as dandy-wear, some of the gowns seem to go straight for the faux-medieval trends of the early 20th-century aristocracy, and others had hints of angular Art Deco imagery:

Sidenote: My new hobby is printing off 1000 copies of this photo of the best spats of all time, folding the photos into a giant origami bed, and then rolling around on the bed until I die.

Tanel Bedrossiantz is Dracula.

While I usually dislike strapless body-suits, this gold outfit modelled by Karlie Kloss was so stunning I had to include it. The cape photographs so beautifully while in motion that it makes me sad this piece is almost certainly one of the ones that'll be bought up by a collector, never to be worn again by anything other than a mannequin.

These exterior-framework outfits were reminiscent of early Thierry Mugler or Gaultier's own designs from the '80s and '90s -- stripped-down corsetry and crinoline hooping, with a fetish edge. The gold bustier dress even seems to include some kind of chastity belt, and looks terrifyingly inflexible.

As is traditional, the show closed with a bridal gown, this one worn with a deconstructed top hat and made entirely from solid white fabric. Even this was dandy-influenced, with tuxedo lapels swooping down the model's back to join the floor-length skirts.

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Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture, Spring 2012.

The fashion world isn't known for its careful handling of sensitive subjects, so a couture collection inspired by Amy Winehouse, a mere six months after her death, wasn't as surprising as it might have been in a different industry.

They say Winehouse had iconic style, but much of that was down to hair and makeup. Her particular brand of kitschy rockabilly-lite came into its own after she hit the A-list (and therefore probably had a stylist), and wasn't far off the street-style of hundreds of other Camdenites. The beehive wig and cat-eye makeup are memorable enough that they make for a recognisable Amy Winehouse look when combined with almost any outfit.

Gaultier is known for his corsets; for elaborate sexiness. Winehouse was known for trashiness, imbued with the infamy of all talented young addicts who die young in the public eye. This collection managed to take enough inspiration from Winehouse that the influence was visible in at least half of the outfits, but avoided heavy-handedness. It succeeded for the same reason as why most Couture designs inspired by, say, Marilyn Monroe or Grace Kelly, are doomed to critical failure these days. Marilyn and Grace are both remembered for wearing sumptuous gowns and movie-costume formalwear (and in Grace Kelly's case, literally becoming a princess) so any couture line drawing inspiration from them is going to end up looking like unimaginative pastiche. But couture's need for luxury and experimentation meant that a direct copy of Amy Winehouse's pencil skirts, polka-dots and Camden Market attire was out of the question. It had to be tempered with the high-end gloss of classic Gaultier.

There were almost 70 looks in this show, meaning that it was more likely for anyone watching to find at least a few things they liked. I tried to pick out a fair sample of the collection as a whole, as opposed to just a few of my favourites (or most-loathed) as I normally would.

The vinyl leggings make this outfit entertainingly tacky, almost Halloween costume-ish, but I suppose it's conceivable that Winehouse might have worn it onstage. Her main fashion rule seemed to have been "make it tight", after all.

Tellingly, my first assumption was that this next outfit must have been taken from some paparazzi shot of Winehouse in a hotel bathrobe or similar. Is there a famous "Amy Winehouse in a dressing-gown" tabloid story? I have no idea. It seemed like a curious inclusion in the show, which aside from this was split evenly from direct Winehouse outfits (ie, 1950s pedal-pusher leggings, bodices, and pencil skirts) and straight-up Gaultier Couture.

Unsurprisingly, this kimono was one of my favourite looks. Unwearable in the context of everyday life, of course, but this is Couture, dahling.

There were a lot of veils in this collection, and this particular dress appeared both with and without, reappearing at the end as the traditional Couture wedding dress finale. A beautiful example of Gaultier structure-work, although that meant it looked as if it could have come from any number of his previous collections.

Mafia wife chic? Not far off Winehouse, I suppose. The colour scheme on the outfit below is far from appealing to me, but the look as a whole has a certain extravagant tackiness to it that makes me marvel a little. There have been quite a lot of scarf-dresses on the catwalks in recent months, but Gaultier gave this one enough structure that it doesn't look like the all-to-easily-faked scarf dresses of whoever it was who co-opted a truckload of Hermes for their show last season.

Andrej Pejic: a current favourite of Gaultier (among many others) and here paired interestingly with a dress that clearly both adjusts considerably around the torso (lacing everywhere, in an homage to... every Gaultier womenswear collection ever, I should think) and has enough bulk around the hips to disguise the fact that he's not quite the same shape as the other models.

Beautiful.

By the latter half of the runway show, the theme was leaning more to the Couture end of the balance, especially since the veils showed up. Ordinarily I find translucent veils rather pointless since they're so inextricably linked with weddings, not to mention highly impractical and rarely worn. But almost every veil shown here was beautiful, adding another layer of patterns to otherwise simpler outfits. The outfit below would've been a fairly standard Gaultier dominatrix look, were it not for the intricate patterns embroidered (woven?) into the veil. Also it livens up that good ol' virgin/whore juxtaposition that the fashion world has been so fixated with since Madonna -- the New York one, that is, not the one from Galilee.

The gold-detailed veil below was one of my favourites. I'd be psyched to see this sort of thing in more real-life outfits, possibly in a skirt since I find the current trend for black mesh/translucent skirts to be very unattractive. If the mesh or tulle could be used as a backdrop to hold some sort of iridescent or colourful pattern, it'd stop the wearer looking like they'd forgotten to put on their overskirt.

While writing this, I realised that one way in which Amy Winehouse is an excellent choice for Gaultier is lingerie. Like Tracey Emin, Amy Winehouse was a great proponent of the "if you're wearing a good bra, show it off" school of dressing -- a philosophy to which I also ascribe, although perhaps not for every scenario (viz: job interviews; funerals). This dovetails conveniently with Gaultier's devotion to vintage underwear styles and visible corsetry.

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