GAULTIER IS THE GOD YOU DON'T QUITE GET
an appreciation of the DeYoung's Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk
By Ava Barez
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| OUR MAN © Pierre and Gilles/Rainer Torrado |
Following the Yves Saint Laurent retrospective at the De Young Museum in San Francisco in 2008, Alexander McQueen’s “Savage Beauty” in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2011 and “Balenciaga and Spain” also at the De Young Museum in 2011, the buzz worthy “Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk” arrived in San Francisco after previous stops at the Dallas Museum of Art and the Montreal Museum of Art. The exhibition, arranged by curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot, features over one hundred Pret-a-Porter and Haute Couture ensembles along with accessories, sketches, photographs, interviews, runway videos and film clips spanning over three decades of Jean Paul Gaultier’s fashion career. Unlike more conventional museum exhibitions, “The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk highlights Gaultier’s creations in an innovative and lively space. Visitors are welcomed into the space by Gaultier himself, via video, and talking, winking, smiling and singing mannequins; the unconventional space is perfectly fitting for fashion’s “enfant terrible."