“Are these voices in my head, or is this really happening?” I wondered as the first looks from the newly reimagined Jean Paul Gaultier emerged from a flickering passageway, accompanied by an echoing whisper. Expectations for the new creative director’s debut were high — boldness and experimentation were anticipated — and indeed, they arrived. The question remains: did this radical gesture evolve into a meaningful statement, or did it remain provocation for provocation’s sake?
In spring 2025, after five years of experimenting with guest designers, the house of Jean Paul Gaultier announced the appointment of its first permanent creative director — Dutch designer Duran Lantink. The fashion industry first took notice of him in the early 2020s, in part due to the now-infamous vagina pants created for Janelle Monáe’s music video back in 2018. His principled approach to working with recycled materials and his experiments with the proportions of the human body earned Lantink the Karl Lagerfeld Special Jury Prize at the LVMH Prize in 2024, cementing his reputation as an innovative designer.
Over six years of developing his own brand, Lantink has established a recognizable and radical visual language: distorted proportions, nudity, and the body treated as an object of experimentation. Yet in his debut for Jean Paul Gaultier, the house’s heritage was reduced to direct quotations — sailor stripes, tattoo motifs, and cone bras. Everything else — from body-transforming silhouettes to visual techniques — was entirely the designer’s own vision, overpowering the maison’s legacy in an aesthetically unconvincing manner.
“I really wanted to study the archives, but I thought it would be better to imagine what lies behind the fantastical creative world of the archival pieces,” Duran shared backstage — and this authorial ego was evident in every single look.
Amid an endless series of debuts this season, the designer seemingly refused to go unnoticed and attempted to replicate a tactic from his latest collection for his own brand, whose final look featuring a bare silicone breast sparked heated online debate. He undoubtedly succeeded. However, the effect was achieved through a device that is difficult to perceive as a conceptual statement — it is provocation for provocation’s sake. Thongs on men, dresses that barely cover the body, and bodysuits featuring detailed prints of male genitalia. According to the designer, his inspirations included the Gaultier Junior diffusion line, a sense of bodily freedom, and rave aesthetics. Yet within the context of ready-to-wear, these garments hardly fulfill their primary function — to clothe the body.
It therefore remains unclear who this collection is truly intended for: the long-standing clientele of Jean Paul Gaultier or admirers of Lantink’s own radical aesthetic. Either way, it will be intriguing to see which elements of this provocative fantasy reach boutiques next spring — and what form the designer’s first couture gesture for the house will take in January.
