My Gaultier Pilgrimage

  皆

がファッションにのめり込んだ理由はきっとそれぞれあると思うんだ。僕の場合は高校からの大親友のEddyがファッションの世界にひきづり込んでくれたんだ。僕たちは高校でもきっと変わり者に見られていたかもしれないね(笑) 授業をさぼってショッピングに行ったこともあったし、ゲイクラヴで朝まで踊り明かしたこともあったな… (そのころはまだ15歳!!) そんなEddyが未だに僕が崇拝するdim sumと伝説のJean Paul Gaultierの存在を教えてくれたんだ。

 

People get their first fashion fix in many ways but my gateway drug to fashion was through my best friend in high school, Eddy. The two of us were misfits, fun-loving weirdos who would skip class to go shopping, or stay out all night vogueing in gay clubs in the city (we were 15). And it was Eddy who introduced me to the two greatest loves of my life – dim sum and Jean Paul Gaultier.

 

僕たちの高校時代のワードローブには80年代のVivienne WestwoodにYohji Yamamoto、Comme des GarçonsにもちろんJean Paul Gaultierも!! その頃は日本で生産されていたGaultierのディフュージョンラインが大人気。ファッションがあまりさかえていなかったシドニーに住んでいた僕たちはそんな80年代のファッションに身を包み、人とはちょっと違ったオーラを放っていたと思うんだ。

 

Throughout our high school years our wardrobes would become filled with all the fashion greats of the 80s – Vivienne Westwood, Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garçons, and of course Jean Paul Gaultier. Back then, it was Junior Gaultier, the made-in-Japan diffusion line, that was all the rage with the kids. Considering we were living in a city (Sydney) not yet known for its fashion, we were pretty out-there, and soon we were a part of a posse of the city’s brightest young things.

 

 

 

ブルックリンとロンドンでのJean Paul Gaultierの展示会に行けなかった僕は先週メルボルンでの展示会に行ってきたんだ。もう説明する必要がないくらいパーフェクトな展示会は、過去のGaultierの輝かしいアウトフィットが奇妙なアニメ顔がプリントされたマネキンに着せられ、ベルトコンベヤーに乗り、人々を魅了していた。こんなに近くで彼の作品を見ることができるなんてまるで夢のようだったね。写真で世界観が伝わるといいな!!

 

So having missed out on the Jean Paul Gaultier retrospective exhibition in both Brooklyn and London, I finally got to catch it in Melbourne last week. Brilliantly curated, the show celebrated Gaultier’s avant-grade triumphs through moving sets, conveyor-belt fashion shows and creepy animated mannequins. I got so close to so many legendary outfits, in early died!

 

 

What truly blew my mind all those years ago – and even now – is how Gaultier played with gender roles. Men in skirts? LOVE! Women in tailored pantsuits? Sexy! Tradition was constantly turned on its head. And of course there were all the legendary Madonna outfits.

 

 

What I loved about Gaultier was that he was able to research deep into exotic cultures and bring out the best elements and make them modern. I remember wearing a skin-tight mesh tattoo top from this collection piled up with silver jewelry and punk JPG padlocks – I wish I still had them!

 

 

This “Chic Rabbi” collection based around the garb of Hasidic Jews was such a revelation to me, that the first time I went to Brooklyn in the mid 1990s I thought everyone was wearing Gaultier! Of course, the opposite was true, but I was so in a Gaultier daze… Maybe I still am.