Jean Paul Gaultier Fall 2024 Couture Collection

In my opinion, of all the names that have designed Jean Paul Gaultier collections since the project began mid-pandemic, Nicolas Di Felice is the greenest. His debut at Courrèges took place in the same year in which this Gaultier collaboration concept was launched: 2021. But although Di Felice has less catwalk experience than predecessors such as Sacai’s Chitose Abe or Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing, this was hardly noticeable during tonight’s presentation.

It was hotter than Hades in JPG headquarters, and it wasn’t just that the air conditioning went out or that the skylights had turned the runway into a real greenhouse. Since arriving at Courrèges, Di Felice has brought it out of the slumber of its heritage label and transformed it into a go-to label for young people looking for sexy clubwear and cool vinyl goods that nod to its Space Age origins. era without thinking about it.

Di Felice was a boy in Belgium when Madonna first wore Gaultier’s cone bra, but the French designer made a strong impression: “For me and for so many strange, different people from the countryside – from all over the world – he represented Paris, a city where everything is possible. He was truly the first to put different people in the spotlight. Everyone remembers this about him and that’s a good thing, because he actually did it.”

The collection told a story about a Parisian arriviste, who wears covered clothing: jackets and dresses with long sleeves, long skirts and necklines that run up to the face. Slowly, as the show progressed, the head emerged, then the shoulders, and toward the end the dresses fell from the hips and the hands were placed into the holes in the fabric in an erotic gesture similar to the one that caused such a stir. caused at Di Felice’s last Courrèges show. The clothes also traveled through the spectrum from dark to light.

For each look, there was one from the archive that inspired it on Di Felice’s board, but the blush of the collection was the hook-and-eye. After finding a sample of fabric in the archive with which it had been embroidered, he used it as connective tissue for the rectangles and squares that he draped and turned into his narrow, body-attached shapes in gabardine de soie, gazar and taffeta, fabrics he has made. could never afford in Courrèges.

“I have been able to create curtains that would not be possible without this technique,” ​​he said. Not only that, the hooks and eyes are manipulable and allow the wearer to adjust the level of exposure. The same tailoring concept was applied to a slip dress worn loose to the waist, revealing a sleeveless sheath underneath to which hooks and eyes were applied like studs. Strong and fragile at the same time, like the mail dress made of 40,000 interconnected hooks and eyes.

For anyone who didn’t know, thanks to his work at Courrèges, this show confirmed it: Di Felice is a great, great talent.