Watching Jacques Becker’s masterpiece about Parisian Couture in the late 40s, starring the delightful Micheline Presle, on his grandmother’s TV set on a Sunday afternoon and more specifically, the fashion show at the end of the film – every single gown created by the extremely talented and very much forgotten Marcel Rochas – was THE motivation for Jean Paul Gaultier to become a fashion designer.
Cinema and fashion have always been intertwined in his career as he’s worked as a costume designer alongside radically different film directors like Peter Greenaway (The Cook, the Thief, his Wife & her Lover), Luc Besson (the 5th Element), and Pedro Almodovàr ( on several occasions.
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The first section of the exhibition is dedicated to his departed friend, the film director Tonie Marshall, Micheline Presle’s daughter: a vaporous Micheline in Marcel Rochas’s wedding gown, followed by Martine Carole’s costume in Max Ophuls’ Lola Montes, Rita Hayworth as Gilda, Marilyn’s dress in Some like it hot, not to mention Bardot in the infamous gingham dress. Men are slightly underrepresented: cowboys’ outfits, Superman’s costume, Bruce Willis’ trousers in the 5th Element, and sailors as sex objects (Fassbinder’s Querelle).
The works of other major French couturiers in films are shown in this section: the ethereal Delphine Seyrig wearing Chanel in Renais’ Last Year in Marienbad, or Catherine Deneuve all decked up in YSL for Belle de Jour.
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JPG has also approached androgynous silhouettes at an early stage of his career, very much influenced by Katherine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich who controversially borrowed from men’s closets and transgressed genders. Women might be in suits, and muscle boys in skirts: the gender roles remain hyper-sexualised.
His collaborations with Pedro Almodovàr (Kika, Bad Education, The skin I live in), his love affairs with William Klein (who are you Polly Magoo?) and John Waters Divine movies are the perfect occasion for JPG to exhibit his penchant for theatricality and his sense of camp.
The finale consists of iconic dresses worn by Grace Kelly and Givenchy’s muse, Audrey Hepburn in a still catwalk animated by fashion shows sequences from films of different periods (Funny Face, The Women). Gaultier highlights the fact that numerous actresses also modeled at some point of their careers and that both worlds are therefore closely mixed.
CINÉMODE EXHIBITION by Jean Paul Gaultier CINÉMATHÈQUE FRANÇAISE 51 Rue de Bercy 75012 Paris cinematheque.fr Until JANUARY 16, 2022
Brigit Mettra and Richard Gilles are slightly past their prime, but still vivacious true Parisian spirits, They have worked as journalists in the spheres of the arts and luxury for the last few decades and are now the happy correspondents for QueerGuru in the City of Lights.
