I was cleaning out photos on my cell phone this weekend when I realized I had never posted here about the fabulous exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum* called The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk. Some of Gaultier’s designs are a bit over the top of me, so I wasn’t quite sure I’d like the exhibition. I did, and not just for the clothes, though may of them are gorgeous. I liked the exhibition because it used technology to the viewer’s advantage: it wasn’t just an add-on; it actually conveyed meaning and provided context.
Here’s the museum’s description of the exhibit:
This multimedia exhibition is organized around seven themes tracing the influences on Gaultier’s development—from the streets of Paris to the cinema—since he emerged as a designer in the 1970s. It features approximately 140 haute couture and prêt-à -porter ensembles, from the designer’s earliest to his most recent collections, many of which are displayed on custom mannequins with interactive faces created by high-definition audiovisual projections. Accessories, sketches, stage costumes, excerpts from films, and documentation of runway shows, concerts, and dance performances, as well as photographs by fashion photographers and contemporary artists who stepped into Gaultier’s world, explore how his avant-garde designs challenge societal, gender, and aesthetic codes in unexpected ways.
Those custom mannequins, which must have cost a bundle, look real and have eyes that move [above left]. The one of Gaultier himself speaks. The projections are well-done. On occasion, the mannequins are set in appropriate surroundings, with the right touch of theatricality [above right]. And the runway actually moves — the mannequins revolve around an oval [left], suggesting a catwalk. They do not sway and swing their hips, but viewers get the picture.
There’s a video on the website too.
And the clothes are really stunning, as these pictures below show — and that’s just a taste. The exhibition runs until Feb. 23.
