Montreal Toasts Gaultier

[MtlMan]

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/montreal-toasts-gaultier/

 

 

Montreal Toasts Gaultier

 

 

“The crowd is ecstatic!” shouted the fashion historian Valerie Steele. She was referring to the more than 2,000 fans at Tuesday’s preview opening of “The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk,” the designer’s first major solo exhibition, at the Montreal’s Musée des Beaux-Arts. (It opens to the public today.) The guests had lined up for hours in front of the museum to catch a glimpse of the show and, with luck, of the man insiders call “fashion’s enfant terrible.” That proved nearly impossible; every room was packed, with visitors struggling to reach a bar or a faraway friend.

 

The previous night, at a smaller, invitation-only party, the singer Arielle Dombasle sang “Porque Te Vas” in a sheer lace dress and thanked the designer. “For all these years,” she said, “Gaultier has created beautiful things with grace, with arrogance, with insolence, and he was always close to artists.” But now Gaultier was close to throngs of admirers, whose excitement neared hysteria when he stepped onto a stage with his muse, the former model Farida Khelfa; the museum’s director, Nathalie Bondil; and the show’s curator, Thierry-Maxime Loriot. “‘Retrospective’ sounds like a funeral,” the designer said. “And I don’t feel dead yet!”

 

With some of Montreal’s leading scenographers and curators, Loriot had gathered both couture and ready-to-wear pieces from four decades of Gaultier’s career, arranging them by theme (“The Boudoir,” “Urban Jungle”) and mixing them with photographs, videos, sound recordings and other memorabilia from the designer’s childhood. Among the designs on display were tattoo-covered sheer bodysuits, a nude corset with metal cone breasts and a white lace dress with cutouts in the shapes of religious icons. The stage director and scenographer Denis Marleau had created mannequins with anthropomorphic faces so expressive that some visitors mistook them for the real people.

 

Later, the beaming designer circulated through the mannequin-filled galleries, posing and signing autographs. “People here are very sympa, not snobby like in Paris,” he said, holding his finger on his nose. The fashion critic Suzy Menkes, an old friend of Gaultier’s, trotted around in an emerald-green Dries Van Noten dress, snapping pictures of Dombasle, Gaultier and Loriot, who was wearing a black bow tie and a skirt.

 

The festivities ended at a sleek downtown penthouse with a panoramic view on the city. With the electro-rock beats of DJ Frigid blaring, young men in skinny leather pants drank tequila, danced and exchanged anecdotes about their encounters with the couturier. “Too bad Gaultier is not here right now,” one magazine editor said. “We’d be that much closer to Lady Gaga!”

 

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[IluvMTL]

Cool 60 second video in the link. I wasn't able to copy it...

 

http://www.marketingmag.ca/uncategorized/watch-this-jean-paul-gaultier-takes-on-montreal-32297

 

July 19, 2011 | Kristin Laird | Comments

 

 

This 60-second black and white television commercial from Publicis Montréal is a beautiful way of promoting the equally stunning collections of French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier, now on display at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

 

The commercial, which is part of a larger campaign touting the museum’s “The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk” art exhibit, follows a model as she strolls the street of Montreal.

 

Everyday objects, as well as various landmarks synonymous with the city, turn blue and white along her journey. The two colours were adopted by Gaultier years ago and have since become his couture moniker.

 

“[The blue and white stripes are] something that he himself embraces… To stripe the whole city in a poetic way with a woman from the smallest details to an ant… It’s something poetic,” said Nicolas Massey, vice-president, creative director at Publicis Montréal.

 

Gaultier appears briefly at the end of the commercial in what Massey described as a “Hitchcock” moment, with the fashion designer walking past the camera with a sly, almost devilish look on his face.

 

The exhibit closes Oct. 2, and then heads to Texas for the next leg of the tour.

 

Originally published in Marketing Magazine,July 19, 2011

[jesseps]

I should totally see the exhibit next week, when my ex is in town.