Jean Paul Gaultier: Catwalk

There is no question that without Jean Paul Gaultier contemporary fashion would not be the same. A pivotal figure, he was a bridge between French classism and its very subversion. Gaultier had great respect for French fashion’s history and craft, while sending up its bourgeois pretensions by reveling in pop culture. He showed fashion that, in Susan Sontag’s words, one can be serious about the frivolous, and frivolous about the serious. His fashion origins were in punk (he saw the Sex Pistols perform one of their two concerts in Paris a month before he showed his first punk-inspired collection), his body of work was in camp, and he finished as the great Parisian couturier.

As always, the visual history of designers’ work who launched their brands in the pre-internet age is not easy to stitch together. Thames & Hudson in the UK, and Yale Publishing in the US have been doing god’s work with its Catwalk series, which presents a history of runway collections of various designers. It has nine under its belt, including Yves Saint Laurent and Vivienne Westwood, and now it’s Gaultier’s turn, with Jean Paul Gaultier: The Complete Collections.

The title is only somewhat misleading; you are not going to get every single look from every collection, which would require an encyclopedia. But you do get a selection of imagery from each collection and a writeup from the fashion historian Laird Borrelli-Persson, who meticulously researched Gaultier’s work. The quotes she gathered from various newspaper reviews of each show are golden nuggets that provide insightful historical context.

As do the images, of course. There are 1,300 of them spread over 632 pages of this doorstopper, and it’s a feast for the eyes, just like Gaultier’s multi-layered collections, which mixed everything into one colorful mad Gaultier stew. Some of these seem sadly naive in the light of the current geopolitical situation; the F/W ‘99 RTW collection was called “The Third Millenium Will Be About Love,” and the A/W ‘05 HC show was called “Tribute to Russia and Ukraine.” Gaultier’s was the kind of optimism that we can no longer afford.

Still, Gaultier’s mixing and remixing of cultures in unexpected combinations – his first gesture was a black perfecto leather jacket paired with a tulle skirt, a punk ballet of sorts – is what made his magic work. What are China and Spain doing in the same collection? What is the meaning of the goth Frida Kahlo? There is no meaning, it’s all fodder for Gaultier’s magpie imagination. A “Mad Mix”  is how one newspaper described one of his shows, and it was spot on. This book is a testament that even an all-encompassing exercise can never grasp the mad genius of Gaultier’s ever-shifting mind. And we don’t advise you to try it; just immerse yourself, one collection after another.

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Jean Paul Gaultier: The Complete Collections (Catwalk). 

Published in the US by Yale University Press ($80) on November 11, 2025.

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