A few weeks ago, I went to the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco with Cirilia, Kristine and Adrienne. Apparently we are all knitters who also have an interest in clothing construction, textiles, and nail polish. We saw so many amazing things, but my personal favorite was this dress. I’d seen it before in Knitwear in Fashion and was really excited to be able to see it up close. Most of it is knitted, but some parts are crocheted, and one area looked like it was done with macrame.

The back was equally amazing. I love the fit and the shapes and, well, all of it.

 

There wasn’t much in the way of interesting socks from a knitting perspective. There were a couple machine knitted knee highs or plain striped socks, but nothing too fancy. I did snap a photo of these because I liked the ridiculousness of them. Socks in silk slippers in high heel wedge sandals… plus pom poms!

Aday who is an even bigger Madonna fan than I am (I lost track around the early 90s) went CRAZY over these corsets that were worn by the queen of pop herself. It was especially interesting to see the shape of those corsets compared to the other garments that were made for a standard runway size.

Another piece I was excited to see was this dress made from film. Anne had told me about a documentary she had seen with this very dress in it, and from her description I recognized it immediately and understood how fantastic it must have looked in motion with wind blowing and to get the effect of the film unrolling. I’m going to have to hunt down that documentary.

I was a little sad to find that there weren’t any pieces from The City of Lost Children, one of my favorite movies of all time. Jean Paul Gaultier designed the costumes for the film, and there were sketches for the costumes but no actual garments.

     

If you find yourself in the San Francisco area, I highly recommend a visit to The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk if you are a fan of spectacle. I was surprised to hear so many people who were at the exhibition commenting on how unrealistic it is to wear any of the pieces. It runs through part of August.

 

This entry was posted on Monday, May 28th, 2012 at 6:47 am and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.