Androgynous male model Andrej Pejic looked gorgeous as he walked Jean Paul Gaultier's couture runway yesterday as the show's bride. Andrej also walked Gaultier's menswear show. I'm digging the veil.
Fashion has always played with androgyny, but lately it has taken a provocative step onto center stage. Remember when Balenciaga sent a bevy of androgynous-looking models, including the fierce Jana K., down the Spring '11 runway? Since then, we've seen Lea T. smooching Kate Moss on the Love cover, a major moment for the transsexual model who made her debut as the Givenchy muse. Jean Paul Gaultier's Spring '11 ad features Karolina Kurkova leaning in for a kiss with a beautiful blonde that looks like a girl, but it's delicate-looking male model Andrej Pejic. These models are blurring the lines of sexuality and the fashion industry is loving it. Click on to view more androgynous images, then tell us what you think of fashion's latest sexual revolution.
>> Despite the fact that his Spring 2011 couture show was inspired by the English punk rock movement and the French can can, Jean Paul Gaultier didn't play any musical soundtrack. Instead, the models paraded in their mohawks and their individual outfits — named things like "The Clash," "Belle Epoque," "Anarchy in the UK," and "Moulin Rouge" — carrying a number in the old school couture way, with Catherine Deneuve calling out the number and then describing the looks in a voiceover. The show, which started over an hour late, culminated in the androgynous male model Andrej Pejic — Gaultier's new favorite — appearing as couture bride in a semi-sheer gown. As the model parade ended, Gaultier finally let the music loose, unleashing a Crazy Horse can can dancer to do splits and kicks down the runway to Offenbach as Deneuve and Pedro Almodovar cheered. The designer took his bow with Farida Khelfa, who walked and also recently completed a documentary on him.
Backstage, Jeanne Beker reports, Gaultier said he "has disdain for the red carpet. Loved seeing Marion Cotillard in his mermaid dress [at the 2008 Oscars] BUT.....He wonders why some houses actually PAY actresses to wear their dresses. And he misses CHER!"
>> Jean Paul Gaultier seems quite enamored with androgynous male model Andrej Pejic — late last week, Gaultier had Pejic walk his men's show both as a man (with Veronica Lake-like hair), and then as a woman (closing the show in a fur gilet and high heels). Then, Gaultier's Spring 2011 women's campaign debuted yesterday, showing Pejic with lookalike Karolina Kurkova — both in fishnets and matching trenchcoats — as photographed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. And finally, word is that Pejic just walked Gaultier's Spring 2011 couture show as bride — perhaps the first time ever that a man has worn the couture bride's dress.
>> How many articles have been written heralding the imminent death of couture? But after Alexander McQueen reported that its custom order business is profitable last week, executives across the board seem optimistic about the state of couture.
Dior, for instance, has doubled the guest list for its Spring 2011 couture show Monday to about 800 people — because the demand is there. “It’s been an excellent year for couture,” Dior CEO Sidney Toledano told WWD, citing a growth in Asian clientele and the fact that American clients who left during the economic crisis returned last year.
Jean Paul Gaultier also experienced a "spectacular" return of American clients last year, according to deputy managing director Caroline Le Borgne, who says: “For the moment, nothing tells us we won’t have a great year."
And Givenchy said its decision to do a presentation instead of runway show last July, creating more exclusivity, was a boon for business. It created a bump in editorial coverage, according to Givenchy CEO Fabrizio Malverdi, and: “The clients have increased because of our intimate presentation. They prefer not to be seen with a show context.” The house had a 10 percent gain in couture in 2010 and expects a similar increase in 2011, Malverdi says. "The Middle East is increasing, and China is starting to show interest."
Armani Prive logged a 45 percent increase in 2010, says Armani deputy chairman John Hooks, fueled by an influx of new clients: "We did an Armani Prive show in Dubai on the occasion of the opening of the new Armani Hotel Dubai, and this had a dramatic effect on sales of couture in the region." He added that new clients in Russia and other ex-Soviet bloc countries also contributed. “Couture is following the current pattern of all trade in the fashion business — emerging markets are growing faster than the established ones.”
That's why Chanel plans to bring Karl Lagerfeld's Spring 2011 couture collection, following its show in Paris on Tuesday, to New York, Los Angeles, Shanghai, and another Asian city — Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo are being considered. “Because the customers are not always coming to Paris, we need to go to them for the fittings,” said Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion at Chanel. And Valentino plans to bring its couture collection to Russia, possibly in 2012, said its CEO Stefano Sassi.
A preview of next week's couture collections in the gallery.
>> Farida Khelfa, who first walked for Jean Paul Gaultier in the '80s and later was his couture director for a time (she's also known as Azzedine Alaia's muse), has directed a 52-minute documentary on the designer, Jean Paul Gaultier ou les codes bouleversés (Jean Paul Gaultier or the shattered codes), which premieres on television tonight in France. The film spans Gaultier's 30-year career, and Khelfa invited her best friend Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, also a friend of the designer, to interview him. They discussed his commitment to the fight against AIDS, which began after he lost his lover and business partner Francis Menuge in 1990 to the disease. “My favorite piece of clothing is the condom, because it protects from the virus,” he tells Bruni-Sarkozy. Khelfa says she wants to do another designer documentary soon. [WWD]
>> Christophe Lemaire, who shows his first Hermes collection in March, says that instead of channeling former Hermes designer Jean Paul Gaultier's runway extravaganzas, he expects to display his collections in a more intimate setting.
The decision reflects his vision for the brand as a whole, he tells WWD: “I think that it’s time to go back to a more honest vision of fashion, and that there is room for a simpler, more pared-down wardrobe that is better suited to everyday life. I have always campaigned to bring quality and, if possible, poetry to everyday life. You don’t change your wardrobe every six months. You build it up over time.”
He added that he is imaging his Hermes to be more in line with Martin Margiela's — who designed for Hermes between 1998 and 2003 — rather than Gaultier's: “I think I will be walking in the footsteps of Margiela more than Gaultier, even if I have a lot of respect for Jean Paul Gaultier and his virtuosity."
Lemaire, who left his position as Lacoste creative director to join Hermes, alluded to tensions with his previous management: “It’s as if the moment had finally arrived for me to show what I’m capable of. For various reasons, I have always lacked either the maturity or the means to develop my own brand, and at Lacoste, I was working under constraints that meant that, even though I think I did a good job, I was never able to unleash my full potential. So I hope to be able to do that at Hermès.” He continued: “I think I succeeded in projecting a certain vision of the brand [at Lacoste]. The problem with a brand is that if the designer has a vision and the management does not have the same vision, or does not understand that vision, then there is obviously a disconnect. So I think that is being addressed, but it was definitely an issue for me.”
