The Bite Magazine Issue 17

create the fragrances: the ladies blow kisses while the men literally toss their hats into the ring. The last scene sees Groeneveld playfully patting the head sailor on his behind as they stand on the walkway and admire their work before the factory is shown as a miniature model. The camera pans back to reveal that it was Gaultier pulling the strings from the beginning. He says, “Closing Time” in French and then snaps the metallic factory shut. Gaultier is a foodie who tributes his appreciation for good food to his grand- mother Marie Garrabe whom he says was “a super-good cook” and “fed me well when I was a boy”, so much so that his dream job was once to make patis- series. She also introduced him to the wonders of fashion: “I was fascinated by her clothes and fabrics; all from the beginning of the century. Hats with feathers and things like that. She lived in an old lady’s apartment surrounded by objects that sparked my imagina- tion.” As a wellness counsellor, Garrabe was said to have advised her clients to dress better in order to improve their lives which instilled a desire in Gaultier to work with power looking clothes. Speaking to Wonderland Magazine’s Ben Cobb, the designer also revealed that he loves things that are different such as a long shaving razor, a sepia photo from 1914 of his grandfather or any other objects that his grandfather would bring back when he visited from England. “I love difference . I was more attracted to things that weren’t of the modern day: it was like they weren’t from reality.” A designer who was described as the ‘enfant terrible’ (meaning ‘unruly child’) of the fashion and fragrance world, Gaultier may be perceived as provoca- tive, saucy, rebellious and witty but you cannot deny that he is a creative genius. Born in 1952, Gaultier who grew up in Acrueil, a surburb south of Paris, did not find school pleasant. He revealed he felt “ugly, boring” and was “useless at football”, so often remained a lone figure in the playground. “But I live in my own world so I didn’t feel embar- rassed about not having any friends,” he admitted to Cobb. “I was curious and learned everything by myself. It’s stupid but sometimes I would look at the clouds and see faces. It was a game for me. I think all that educated me in ideas.” Unlike most designers, Gaultier did not attend design school but instead landed his first job at Pierre Cardin on his 18 th birthday after sending packets of his drawings to 27 design houses. After Cardin, he worked with Jean Patou, and then returned back to Cardin before launching his own fashion house almost 40 years ago. What made Gaultier so different from his peers was the fact that he used unusual and often inex- pensive materials like braided straw in his first show. Gaultier is definitely not your medi- ocre or average designer: over the decades we have seen many of his own inimitable signatures such as the Breton stripes, tattoo prints, corsets, men in skirts and other design state- ments that crosses the line between the both sexes. When Madonna chose his clothes for her Blonde Ambition tour, the designer said it was because “they blur the [line between] mascu- line and feminine.” It may have been made famous by the singer but Gault- ier had previously designed a prototype (perhaps without realising at the time) when he was a child as well as featuring the design in his 1983 catwalk show. “I remember rolling and cutting up some paper to make the first pointed bra for my teddy bear! He was flat-chested and I wanted a girl to play with. Et voila! I turned him into a transvestite.” Gault- ier was also responsible for Madonna’s breast-exposing pinstripe suit and her wardrobe of corsets. He turned up at the 1995 MTV Awards in a floor-length skirt and for much of the nineties he wore his trademark kilt and Matalot shirt, when co-hosting Eurotrash , Channel 4’s ‘late-evening lavatorial flesh- fest’ with Antoine de Caunes. It was from watching his grandmother’s clients while they had homemade perm solution applied to their hair and eaves- dropped on their gossip that Gaultier began imagining and drawing them in evening gowns, jewellery and extrav- agant hair-dos, exactly “as I wanted them to look.” However, the real cre- ativity developed after he watched a documentary on the Folies-Berg è res and was immediately fascinated by the dancers’ fishnets and feathers. While sitting at the back of his class at school, Gaultier found himself fever- ishly drawing the glamorous women of the Folies-Berg è res and when his teacher caught him and punished him by pinning the artwork to his back and made him parade down the corridors for his fellow pupils to humiliate him, it backfired. “All the boys cheered me,” Gaultier explained with glee. “It was the first time they had a positive reaction to me. I instantly thought, ‘Oh! By drawing, bite designerprofile