Sunday 15 November 2009
Jean Paul Gaultier is Awesome
Born 24th April 1952 in France,
Jean Paul Gaultier had received no formal training as a designer previously; he began by sending sketches to famous couture stylists, where his talent was spotted by Pierre Cardin who employed him as an assistant in 1970.
He then worked for Jacques Esterel in 1971.
In the same year he worked for Jean Patou, where he worked for two years.
He later went back to work for Pierre Cardin where he was sent to Manila to represent the company.
In 1976 Jean Paul Gaultier set up his own label- making electronic jewellery with his partner Francis Menuge, the man Jean Paul Gaultier described as the love of his life.
1978 after he had received financial backing he presented his first fashion collection - however it was not a success.
“I was a joke for three years, and to be a joke in France is not funny.” He told the Sunday express in 1987.
It was not until the 80s that he really took off, in which he became part of the pop culture that he had previously followed.
He is known as “enfant terrible” (the bad boy) of French fashion. He turned his back on predictable French fashion and looked to street fashion for influence.
In 1988 he expanded to include the label Junior Gaultier, which was a lower priced line for the younger market. It had a strong nautical influence that he carried on throughout all his collections.
It was later replaced by JPG by Gaultier, which consisted of a unisex collection.
He has also designed costumes for Peter Greenaway’s “The Cook, The thief, his Wife and her lover” (1989), Pedro Almodovar’s “Kika” (1994), Caro and Jeunet’s “City of the Lost Children” (1995) and Luc Besson’s “The Fifth Element” (1997).
1990 he published his autobiography “A Nous Deux la Mode”.
Jean Paul Gaultier was seen weekly on TV show “Eurotrash” throughout the 90s and even released his own album of house music “How to do that?” with Tony Mansfield in 1989.
In 1999 Jean Paul Gaultier was the first fashion designer to go online.
1997 revealed his first haute couture collection, which showed a more formal side.
In July 1999 Hermes bought 35 percent of Jean Paul Gaultier’s company, and so enabling him to open stores within East Asia
In 2003 he was appointed the Creative Director for Hermes.
He has even been awarded the title of Chevalier, which is one of France’s highest honours.
He is also has his fragrance range in which he is best known for his signature torso shaped bottle.
He is still successfully producing his menswear and womenswear, diffusion and couture collection as well as the collection for Hermes.
Azzadine Alaia..Wicked good!
Azzadine Alaia was born on a farm in Tunisia on the 7th of June 1940. His parents were both farmers but his glamorous twin sisters inspired his love for couture. He is a couturier and shoe designer, and was particularly influential in the 1980’s being crowned the “King of Cling.”
Professional History
He lied about his age to get himself into the local École des Beaux-Arts in Tunis and began studying sculpture where he gained valuable insights into the human form. He then began work as a dressmaker's assistant and soon began dressing private clients, in 1957 he moved to Paris to work in fashion design. Whilst there he worked for Christian Dior as a tailleur, but soon moved to Guy Laroche for two seasons, then for Thierry Mugler until he opened his first atelier in his apartment the late 1970s. His atelier dressed the world's jet set, from Marie-Hélène de Rothschild to Greta Garbo.
In 1980 he produced his first ready-to-wear collection and moved to larger premises on rue du Parc-Royal. Alaïa was voted Best Designer of the Year and Best collection of the Year at the Oscars de la Mode by the French Ministry of Culture in 1984 in a memorable event where Grace Jones carried him in her arms on stage!
Designer Andrée Putman was walking down Madison Avenue with one of the first Alaïa leather coats ad was stopped by a Bergdorf Goodman buyer and asked what she was wearing. This began a turn of events that lead to Alaia designs being sold in New York and Beverly Hills. By 1988, he had opened his own boutiques in these two cities and in Paris. His seductive, clinging clothes were a massive success. Devotees included fashion-inclined celebrities such as Grace Jones, Tina Turner, Naomi Campbell etc.
Alaïa virtually vanished from the fashion scene, during the mid-1990’s following the death of his sister. He did however continue to cater for a private clientele and enjoyed commercial success with his ready-to-wear lines.
In 2000 he signed a partnership with the Prada group. Working with Prada saw him through a second impressive renaissance, and in July 2007, he successfully bought back his house and brand name from the Prada group, though his footwear and leather goods division continues to be developed and produced by the group.
2009
Silhouette
Alaïa's clothes caught the mood of the times when many women had turned to exercise and a new, muscled body shape had begun to appear in the pages of fashion magazines. Many women wanted to flaunt their newly-toned bodies, helped by recent developments in fabric construction that enabled designers to create clothing to accentuate the female form in a way unprecedented in European fashion.
Although, at first sight, Alaïa's clothes seem to cling to the natural silhouette of the wearer, they actually create a second skin, holding in and shaping the body by techniques of construction such as faggoting. This body consciousness is further enhanced by using materials such as stretch lace over flesh-colored fabric to give an illusion, rather than the reality, of nudity.
The signature Alaïa look began to emerge in the early 80s: rivetted leather, industrial-zipped dresses, a predominance of knit fabrics and experimental mixes of lace and leather, silk jersey and tweed. Every year, Alaïa extends his palette of fabrics. In 1994, he showed long dresses in "houpette", a stretchy new fabric that molds to the body. The following year he made clothes out of "Relax", an anti-stress fabric with carbon-dipped fibres that repel electromagnetic waves. NASA uses it for wall and floor coverings.
Like Alaïa's timing, his hemlines are impervious to the dictates of fashion. They can run from upper-thigh to ankle-length within the same collection. What is constant, however, is a tailoring and cut that follows the same principles as corset-making - the use of stays, whalebones, lace-ups and decolletage to flatter the figure and highlight the bust.
A side note: one of his dresses is featured in the film ‘Clueless” you may remember the lines as the main character Cher is mugged:
ROBBER: C'mon! Alright, now, uh, get down on the ground. Face down. C'mon!
CHER: Oh, no. You don't understand, this is an Alaia.
ROBBER: An a-what-a?
CHER: It's like a totally important designer.
