Jean Paul Gaultier was never going to make a quiet exit. His 50 year career in fashion has been a riot of colour, flamboyance, creativity and innovation, so it was only fitting that his final show embodied all of those things – and more. More was really the point, too; this swansong was certainly not for the minimalists among us.
While our cultural conversation is now dominated by discussions about diversity, identity and inclusion, Gaultier has been exploring and championing such topics since the very beginning. He has often subverted traditional gender roles and identities, for example, and has always cast a diverse range of models. For his final farewell, this was no different.
Generations of supermodels were in attendance, from Anna Pawlowksi, who featured in Gaultier's first shows, to Bella and Gigi Hadid – the faces of the Instagram era. Karlie Kloss, Irina Shayk, Karen Elson, Yasmin LeBon, Erin O'Connor, Dita Von Teese and Winnie Harlow also stormed the catwalk alongside a cast of creatives who had been invited to audition in an open casting.
The clothes, too, were both nostalgic and thoroughly imaginative, combining that inimitable sense of historic theatricality and forward-thought that Gaultier instills in all of his creations. Many of the models wore upcycled versions of pieces from the Gaultier archive, representative of the designer's consistent commitment to sustainability, long before the prophetic warnings from Greta Thunberg. Speaking backstage, Gaultier told Vogue: “I was recycling things, because at the beginning I had no money. So I was taking things like jeans and camouflage and doing funny things with them— and now I did that with my couture!”
Boy George opened the show with a version of Amy Winehouse's Back To Black, while the cast of models were frozen in a tableau of a funeral. In the audience, some of fashion's greatest creators were watching, including Viktor & Rolf, Mary Katrantzou, Isabel Marant, Christian Louboutin and Nicolas Ghesquière, who started his own illustrious career as an intern to Gaultier.
This was a true fashion spectacle, in every sense of the word, and a fitting tribute to a triumphant 50 years. While the couture schedule will certainly bear a significant, Gaultier-shaped hole for some time, we can all look forward to the designer's next move. When he announced that this show would be his last, Gaultier hinted that something new is coming.
'This show celebrating 50 years of my career will also be my last,' he said. 'But rest assured Haute Couture will continue with a new concept.' Thank goodness for that.