He’s one of the most famous, lauded fashion designers in history. For decades, Jean Paul Gaultier has wowed the fashion world with his creativity and rule-breaking designs.
This weekend I was lucky enough to be invited to view The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk showing at the National Gallery Victoria. While wandering around the beautifully-curated and presented collection, it struck me just how much we can all learn about creativity from such an undeniable master.
Lesson #1: Mix Unexpected Elements
Gaultier’s genius lies in his ability to mix unexpected elements in his clothing. Take this example:
A mixture of denim, lace and feathers with a tattoo-print undershirt makes a stunning but completely-unexpected evening gown.
The more you practice and the more you observe, the better you can become at taking two seemingly-clashing things and mixing them together to create something awesome. This applies to all forms of creativity.
Writers can mix two different genres, or two different writing styles in the one piece. Artists can combine two different mediums in creating a visual piece. Musicians can add an unexpected instrument to a regular pop song.
Growing your creative eye or ear in this way is what will make your work really stand out.
“The shock of the way I mix patterns and fabrics can be disconcerting, but what I am trying to do is provoke new ideas about how pieces can be put together in different ways.” – Jean Paul Gaultier, Vogue, 1984
Lesson #2: Refuse to Follow Stifling Rules (But Respect the Ones That Matter)
One of Gaultier’s signatures has always been his refusal to follow gender rules. He says that apart from the medieval codpiece and the bra, there’s no such thing as gendered clothing. By not being stuck in a narrow view of what women’s wear and men’s wear has to be, Gaultier has been able to consistently breathe new life into both types of fashion. He knows that rules that stifle creativity should always be broken.
However, this isn’t to say that he breaks all the rules, all the time. He truly loves fashion and although he shocks with his creativity, he does so within the defined rules of the medium. For example, Gaultier is a recognised haute couture house. The rules around what constitutes haute couture (French for high fashion) are notoriously strict—fashion houses must be approved by a French regulating commission in order to label their clothing haute. Pieces are all constructed by hand from start to finish using the highest-quality materials by the best seamstresses in the world.
As the leader of one of only a handful of official haute couture houses, Gaultier works within those rules to create his most artistic pieces.
What is your lesson here? Whatever you’re creating, there is almost certainly well-established rules around it. Your job is to study those rules, and work out which you need to follow and which you should break.
Hint: try to understand the reasons behind the rules. The rules around haute couture are strict because they are attempting to uphold a standard of the highest quality, and by allowing anyone to label their clothes haute couture, the term would lose all meaning—that is a good reason to follow a rule.
On the other hand, the rules around gendered clothing that we often see are based on nothing but outdated and restrictive gender rules. If women can wear pants, there’s no reason why men can’t wear skirts. Breaking these kinds of rules actually helps people to see the world and their place in it in a different way. And that is absolutely a great reason to break a rule.
“To conform is to give in.” – Jean Paul Gaultier
Lesson #3: Make the Old New Again
In the collection, there were several manequins dressed in a mixture of newer and older pieces. In the following photo, the male manequin is wearing a vintage 80s Gaultier top and a recent Gaultier leather kilt.
The way they go together, you’d never guess that they are from different eras. Gaultier has said he starts each new collection by thinking how he can refresh his classics. Just because something is old, doesn’t mean it can’t be made new again by using it in a different way.
If you’re creative, you’ve most likely got draws (virtual or actual) full of old work. Old scribbles, old poems, old photos—things you’ve forgotten about. Try spending a couple of hours going through your forgotten work and pull out things you might be able to reuse or rework, things you can mix with other elements (see lesson #1!) to make something new.
Another way you can make the old new again is to do some research on old art and trends. What kind of writing was in fashion in the 20s? What were people wearing a hundred years ago? What elements of music were usual in the middle ages?
Taking elements from the past and putting your own modern spin on them can open up vast new points of inspiration for you.
“I respect individualities and I like particularities. I mix and match, collect, twist and crossbreed codes. Past, present, here, elsewhere, masculine, feminine, remarkable, humdrum—it all coexists.” – Jean Paul Gaultier, 2011
Lesson #4: Take Inspiration From Everywhere
Our final Gaultier lesson is a big one. When you take in the entire retrospective of Gaultier’s collections, you can see a vast array of inspirations have helped him to create them. Gaultier has often discussed his love of movies, and has both designed costumes for them and taken inspiration from them for his fashion collections.
Other things he has been inspired by are religious icons, late-70s punk style, cultures in Africa and Asia, animals… the list goes on. Sometimes these inspirations are subtle and sometimes they’re overt. Often the same inspiration is used to create a completely different effect within the same collection.
If there’s one thing Gaultier obviously gets, it’s that you can find beauty everywhere, in the most unexpected of places, in situations you might think are devoid of any redeeming qualities.
If Gaultier can look at a garbage bag and find a way to make it beautiful, then you can too. This is the most fun of all the lessons—train yourself to find inspiration in everyday items.
Grab the closest thing to you on your desk (or wherever you are)—look at it. Study it. It might be something you look at every day, but it’s unlikely you’ve ever paid real, focused, close attention to it. Do it now. Can you come up with a new way to use it? Or a way to mix it with something else to make something new?
Try to make this a habit—when you’re out and about, look around you at the buildings and monuments and things and people, and try to see them in a new context. You’ll probably find it impossible to turn it off when the floodgates of inspiration open!
“I would like to say to people, open your eyes and find beauty where you normally don’t expect it.” – Jean Paul Gaultier
The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk is showing at the National Gallery Victoria in Melbourne until February 8, 2015. More info here: http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/jeanpaulgaultier
I like this article, it was strangely and uniquely inspiring.
I was lucky enough to see this exhibition when visiting Melbs last year. He really is one of my all time creative icons- his pieces are simply astounding, and to me encapsulates the theater and the spectacle that fashion can be. As the added bonus, the way the exhibition was curated and styled was a spectacle in itself- almost like being at one of JPG’s runway shows in Paris…
I agree, to me he represents everything good and aspirational about fashion.
And oh God, the set up of the exhibition was incredible. I didn’t know any of the specifics when I went, and when I first saw one of the “models” blink, I thought I was losing my mind! The row of singing models was just beyond words. And I loved the revolving runway too. It was one of my favourite exhibitions I’ve ever attended.