Jean Paul Gaultier is a French haute couture and prêt-à-porter fashion designer. He is described as an "enfant terrible" of the fashion industry and is known for his unconventional designs with motifs including corsets, marinières, and tin cans. Gaultier founded his eponymous fashion label in 1982, and expanded with a line of fragrances in 1993. He was the creative director for French luxury house Hermès from 2003 to 2010, and retired following his 50th-anniversary haute couture show during Paris Fashion Week in January 2020.
Gaultier in 2006
Gaultier at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival
Gaultier with Madonna, 2015
Madonna's trademark corset with cone bra from the exhibition at the ArkDes, 2013
Haute couture is the creation of exclusive custom-fitted high-end fashion design. The term haute couture is French, "haute" meaning "high" or "elegant," and "couture" translating to "sewing" or "dressmaking." The term haute couture generally refers to a specific type of upper garment common in Europe during the 16th to the 18th century, or to the upper portion of a modern dress to distinguish it from the skirt and sleeves. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Paris became the centre of a growing industry that focused on making outfits from high-quality, expensive, often unusual fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable of sewers—often using time-consuming, hand-executed techniques. Couture translates literally from French as "dressmaking", sewing, or needlework and is also used as a common abbreviation of haute couture and can often refer to the same thing in spirit.
Pierre Balmain adjusting a dress on model Ruth Ford in 1947 (photographed by Carl Van Vechten)
The annual Met Gala, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and organized by Vogue high-fashion magazine, hosts the largest haute couture fashion night annually.
Haute couture fashion models walk the runway during New York Fashion Week.
Chanel Haute Couture Fall-Winter 2011–2012 Fashion Show by Karl Lagerfeld