Jean Paul Gaultier

Jean Paul Gaultier is a French haute couture and ready-to-wear fashion designer. He is described as an "enfant terrible" of the fashion industry and is known for his unconventional designs with motifs including corsets, mariners, and tin cans. Gaultier founded his self-titled fashion label in 1982 and expanded with a line of fragrances in 1993. He was the creative director for the French luxury house Hermès from 2003 to 2010 and retired following his 50th-anniversary haute couture show during Paris Fashion Week in January 2020.

Many of Gaultier's subsequent collections have been based on streetwear, focusing on popular culture, whereas others, particularly his haute couture collections, are very formal, yet at the same time unusual and playful. Jean Paul Gaultier says he is inspired by the baby boomers' TV culture and the street culture where audacity sometimes triggers new trends. His main inspirations are the French popular culture, the mixing of types and genders, sexual fetishism, and futurist designs.

The advent of his haute couture line brought him massive success in 1997. Through this collection, he was able to freely express the scope and range of his aesthetic, drawing inspiration from radically divergent cultures. Gaultier caused shock by using unconventional models for his exhibitions, like older men and full-figured women, heavily tattooed models, and by playing with traditional gender roles in the shows. In the spring of 2015, his catwalk show at Paris Fashion Week featured silver-haired models again. The trend soon took off among celebrities and the general public.