Jean Paul Gaultier

Ring A Bell. Jean Paul Gaultier SS27

| Design & Culture by Ed

Jean Paul Gaultier was bonkers. A year in, it’s safe to say that Duran Lantink’s appointment as creative director was the best decision the brand could have made – precisely because it was also the riskiest. Of course, if you look at his spring-summer 2027 collection from a “pragmatic” point of view, it’s very easy to dismiss. But remind yourself that fashion can, after all, be fun – and that for designers like Gaultier, Sonia Rykiel and Franco Moschino, this was practically a mantra – and suddenly what Lantink is doing feels brilliant.

There are no in-your-face references to Jean Paul’s archives. Instead, Lantink seems to have understood a Jean Paul way of thinking – if only Sean McGirr had found a similar pattern at McQueen. There are cheeky nods to Holland, Lantink’s native country, but also to Tyrol and Bavaria: dresses covered in jingling bells, folk-inspired patterns, white milkmaid nightgowns. And then, all of a sudden, seriously mundane clothes for getting your hands dirty, like a parka jacket. After this collection, you just want to book a trip somewhere in the mountains. And never come back.

All collages by Edward Kanarecki.

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Cocky! Jean Paul Gaultier AW26 Couture

| Design & Culture by Ed

What I love most about Duran Lantink‘s debut haute couture collection for Jean Paul Gaultier is that it doesn’t seek approval. It’s unapologetically cocky- and fashion has become strangely afraid of cockiness lately. More importantly, it makes you believe that Lantink might just be the designer to reinvent the wheel – or at the very least, come up with a piece of clothing you’ve genuinely never seen before. He’s certainly on that path.

The weirdness and abstractness of his couture prove he’s no longer just the guy fascinated by Rei Kawakubo’s lumps and bumps, churning out inflated silhouettes (although he refines them here into something even more otherworldly – and delightfully bouncy). His understanding of silhouette and texture extends far beyond that, allowing him to experiment with remarkable confidence.

Looking at the collection, you stop wondering whether it fits within the Jean Paul Gaultier universe. Somehow, the internally corseted, sideways-melted body carapace worn by Leon Dame, feather-covered tubes knotted into a dress, or those enormous ball gowns wrapped in Versailles brocade all feel unmistakably enfant terrible. I suspect Gaultier himself wanted a successor who wouldn’t treat the archives as sacred scripture, but would think wildly outside the box – and reinvent. Reinvention has always been the designer’s ethos, and Duran understands that instinctively.

This couture season has been a rather safe one, with a few highs and plenty of middling moments along the way. Then Lantink’s Jean Paul Gaultier came along, changed the trajectory, and spiced things up. More than anything, it left me eager to see what else emerges from that brilliantly fearless mind.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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The Power of Strangeness. Jean Paul Gaultier AW26

| Design & Culture by Ed

Duran Lantink has managed to turn his signature strangeness into a mischievous force at Jean Paul Gaultier. His inflated bodies, extraterrestrial protrusions, and distorted silhouettes no longer read as one-off shock tactics, but rather as part of a broader vision for what the brand can become.

To truly appreciate it, you have to momentarily set aside everything you think you know about Gaultier and allow yourself to engage with Lantink’s methodology of seeing the bod – one that leans more toward the abstract than the figurative. He drew inspiration from the image of Marlene Dietrich holding a whip, which sparked the idea of “Madame Masculinity.” And when you think about it, is there anything more JPG?

Where Gaultier once disrupted the anatomical canon through hyper-corsetry, Lantink does so with conical shoulder lines and padded protuberances. There is a distinctly commanding presence in these constructed, almost alien postures. The former delighted in reworking the tropes of historical dress, and the latter pushes panniered forms to new extremes, creating gowns that appear to float through space, as if guided by an invisible puppeteer.

Lantink’s vision for the brand may not resonate with everyone, but it’s worth remembering that Gaultier himself was once scorned – and misunderstood – by critics. Today, he is a legend. Time will tell whether Duran’s ideas are ahead of their time.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Exaggerated Body. Jean Paul Gaultier SS26

| Design & Culture by Ed

Duran Lantink’s debut for Jean Paul Gaultier is a collection I’m still making up my mind about. For me, the core of the Gaultier brand has been utterly diffused by the revolving door of guest designers, each coming in for a single couture collection every six months. At this point, the brand could be almost anything.

On one hand, I think it was a wise choice for Duran not to revive Jean Paul’s archives too literally. On the other, this collection revealed that his own repertoire still feels somewhat limited. It could just as easily have been a Duran Lantink show – and honestly, it might have made more sense that way. The razor-sharp cut-outs, the “Lumps and Bumps”-inspired silhouette manipulations, the op-art stripes, the bodysuits printed with a haired male corpse – it’s all Duran through and through, like it or not. But we’ve already seen most of these ideas play out, in slightly different variations, within his own brand. READ MY FULL REVIEW HERE.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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