Friday, August 17, 2012

Gaultier at the de Young


 
This past week, I went to see the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the de Young. Now this exhibit as been at the de Young all summer and I've been looking longingly at the flags hung all around the city, telling myself that I have to go. Of course, I didn't actually get my butt over there until my last week of summer and the last week of the exhibit. Classic. Now I must admit, I'm not the biggest museum person. It's one of those things that I really want to like. I want to be cultured and snobby like that. Unfortunately, I don't have the attention span to look at every piece/object/painting/whatever with the deep intensity and thought it deserves.
Instead, I stroll along looking at what I can recognize or find interesting. Sometimes I check my phone. And although I did do some of these same things when I went to the de Young the other day, I did it much less! Which proves that I enjoyed my experience there!
Honestly, I'm always far more interested by an exhibit when it's about fashion. Maybe it's the inner shopoholic in me that comes out and treats the museum more like a window shopping expedition rather than a museum stroll. Although most of the garments were not something I would wear (as my niece who saw it a couple days after me said), they were still fascinating to see, envisioning them on models strolling down the runway.
But the main element that kept my attention was just the brilliance of Gaultier. Dubbed the "enfant terrible" or "terrible child" of fashion, Gaultier founded his own couture house in 1997 when most people believe couture was dead. Many people actually give Gaultier the credit for the continued strength of the couture artform, with his challenging and innovative collections. Through both his couture and pret à porter collections, Gaultier takes inspiration from the changing world around him and reflects them in his own dress codes (From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk was the title of this exhibition--fitting right?). He bravely and famously tackles sexual issues such as conventional gender roles, transgender, androgynous, HIV all through his clothing. Many of these gender challenging garments were made famous by Madonna. He also looks do the diverse population of his native Paris to create multicultural looks in his collections.
So that's enough chitchat, below are some pictures I took at the exhibit. I hope you enjoy them. Miraculously they let me take pictures without flash! When I went to a similar exhibit at the New York MOMA, they yelled at me and made me delete the picture. How Rude, right?!

See that small picture of Madonna in the background, and that's a version of her classic cone-shaped bra!
Madonna wore this in the opening of her last tour
That's not cheetah skin, those are beads! Took over a 1000 hours to make


2 comments:

  1. Really good looking boots. It looks much better when you leav them completely unzipped. Really! Have you ever thought to try it several times?

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