Gaultier Vs. Dame Darcy
While wending my way home from Portland, I stopped into the De Young Museum in San Francisco to see the Gaultier exhibit that originated in Montreal last year. JPG was a favorite designer of mine through my highschool and college years, and it’s neat to see so many of his couture pieces mounted as an art exhibition.
The show also features artists that JPG has worked with/for/collaborated with, including Herb Ritts, Andy Warhol, Pedro Almodovar, Pierre Cardin, Madonna, Pierre et Gilles, Luc Besson, and others, both more famous and more obscure-
Creepily animated JPG introduces the exhibit- his face is projected on a white mannequin, and looks amazing!
Jean Paul Gaultier loves Leigh Bowery , and so do I.
Punkity punk punk!
The show also has a very wonderful coffee-table book with some amazing photographs and essays about Gaultier’s influences and collaborators that I recommend highly.
If you distill it all down, Gaultier’s design career has been made of:
1. Mermaids
2. Punks
3. S&M
4. Sailors
5. Dolls
6. Corsets
7. The Madonna
8. Madonna
At the exhibit, I was reminded of the obsessions of the amazingly multitalented illustrator/musician/dollmaker Dame Darcy:
1. Mermaids
2. Sailors
3. Witches
4. Horses
5. Dolls
6. Dark Fairies
7. Saints & Goddesses
8. The Madonna
9. Siamese Twins!
I think this sounds like a collaboration in the making-
At any rate, I heartily recommend them both!