27 June 2024 |
Step up Nicolas Di Felice, to take a turn at Jean Paul Gaultier for haute couture. The Belgian-born designer is the creative director of Courrèges where he breathed new life into the heritage brand, making it relevant and desirable for a whole new generation. He has set the ready-to-wear world alight with his sleek, slick silhouettes (he learnt his cutting skills with Nicolas Ghesquière) but how would he approach Gaultier couture? The Gaultier bit was easy.
Speaking backstage he explained how he viewed Gaultier as a supreme story teller. The Paris that Gaultier projected to a small town boy was one of freedom and acceptance, and was an inspiration to Di Felice as a young designer and a queer man. “He was really the first one to celebrate different people. Everybody remembers this about him and it’s a good thing, because he actually did it.”
Di Felice created a narrative for his collection, of an ingenue arriving in Paris symbolically hidden beneath face veils and draped fabric, before gradually revealing more themselves as clothes peeled away from corseted bodices.
De Felice cleverly abstracted Gaultier most famous trope and put his own minimalist spin on it. The decorative aspect of couture, where lavish embroidery is the norm brought him out of his comfort zone. “Not my cut of tea”, he said. His answer? The hook and eye detailing became was the main embellishment on his lean, monochromatic silhouettes. It oozed sophistication. Gaultier’s verdict was emphatic. Di Felice had taken iconic elements of his style and modernised them, he said, “I don’t expect people to make copies of my work. Otherwise there’s no point, right?”
Photography courtesy of Jean Paul Gaultier.
