JEAN PAUL GAULTIER Handbag

JEAN PAUL GAULTIER Handbag

COMELYHANDBAG FACTORY
www.komely.com.hk

Jean Paul Gaultier was a precocious young man, working for Pierre Cardin as a teenager and then for Jan Patou. He launched his own label in 1977, at the age of 25, but really made his mark in the 1980s. This was a decade where extreme creativity on the catwalk was as much a part of fashion as power handbags. Gultier’s shopping bag became a fashion travelling trend. The reason he mixed references to the London street style he was on trips across the Channel, as well as adopting a playful approach to his own heritage: the Eiffel Tower and the Breton stripe have become Gaultier signatures. As well as designing for performers such as Madonna and Kylie Minogue, and for films including The Fifth Element, Gaultier has enjoyed a parallel career as something of a celebrity. He appeared on Eurotrash, a late night British TV show in the early 1990s, and released a record, “How to Do That”,in 2000s. If Gaultier’s use of corsetry has its most famous example in the costumes made for Madonna’s “Blonde Ambition” tour in 1990, it is an interest that actually dates back to his childhood the Parisian born designer created his first corset for his teddy bear. In a new decade, it is Gaultier’s designs that are once again in the limelight. The designer saw this as a moment to bow out on a high: he retired from ready to wear in September 2014. His fashion bag collection has been reassessed recently thanks to the exhibition The Fashion World to Jean Paul Gaultier. First staged in Montreal in 2011, it has now toured eight venues across the world and has had over a million visitors.