Happy birthday to John Paul Gaultier! Born on April 24, 1952, Gaultier celebrates his 62nd birthday today. We're commemorating the occasion by sharing a pair of playful, high-waisted jodphur-style jeans from the designer's JPG by Gaultier line.
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Jean Paul Gaultier specializes in joyfully rejecting conventional distinctions between masculine and feminine dress. 'Une garde-robe pour deux' (A wardrobe for two), a 1985 Gaultier illustration, portrays a man and women in nearly identical ensembles of wide-legged trousers, midriff-baring tops and oversized jackets. In a play on expectations, Gaultier gives the man a long pony-tail, while the women sports short hair. Gaultier's most notorious experiments in gender-bending are his skirts for men. First introduced in 1985, Gaultier played with the idea of men in skirts through the 1990s. He offered a variety of styles, including kilts, sarongs, tunics and long maxi skirts. Gaultier's comment, "masculinity is not connected to the clothes you're wearing--it's in the mind," offers a basis for his belief in this sometimes controversial mode of dressing.1 For Madonna's 1990 Blond Ambition tour, Gaultier designed a blue velvet cone bra to be worn by male back-up dancers. This bra complemented Madonna's own outfit, a pale pink corset.
Jodphur-style jeans
JPG By Gaultier
1995-96
Museum Purchase
2007.5.15