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‘I don’t follow trends. It’s my job to create trends.’

A particularly well-dressed Parisian crowd packs the Fondation Cartier, a giant glass and steel art gallery designed by Jean Nouvel and created 20 years ago by Alain-Dominique Perrin, the former CEO of Cartier. That’s a lot of names in a single sentence – but the star of the show is still to come. Addressing journalists in the middle of the room is a familiar figure with peroxide blond hair and a stripy sailor’s sweater. He makes playful, self-deprecating pronouncements and booms with laughter. Even somebody with a limited interest in fashion would immediately recognize Jean-Paul Gaultier. We’re standing in the French designer’s first retrospective. But, this being a Gaultier show, something is out of kilter. The delicate aroma in the air gives it away: every dress on show is made out of bread. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that the designer has used basketwork, dough and armfuls of baguettes to make pastiches of dresses for a show called ‘Pain Couture’.
Gaultier tells the press that he shied away from the original suggestion of a straightforward retrospective, featuring real dresses on static mannequins, because ‘clothes are only interesting when they are on a body in motion’. He came up with the bread idea while recalling his childhood, when he used to go to the boulangerie and yearn to work behind the counter. ‘There are a lot of similarities between the act of sewing and the act of baking.’
Around us, willowy girls in space-age pinafores à la Gaultier proffer phallic baguettes. Downstairs, an oven installed for the duration of the exhibition turns out ‘designer’ pastries that can be consumed on the premises – a handy metaphor for the ephemeral nature of fashion. As JPG says, ‘You know, when you see a girl in a beautiful dress, you just want to eat her!’
The journalists seem to be taking the whole thing a lot more seriously than Jean-Paul himself. This is not entirely surprising, as his creativity goes hand-in-hand with a surreal sense of humour. His appearances on the vulgar-but-ironic television show Eurotrash endeared him to millions of British viewers – and, some say, upset the French fashion establishment.
But while ‘Pain Couture’ is a great deal of fun, it also does no harm to Gaultier’s image. It garners plenty of press coverage and fits right in with his brand profile, which is off-the-wall but pure Parisian. And what could be more French than a baguette?

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