
Traveling around the globe makes you see an innumerable amount of things: sights, museums, exhibitions…. but you also do miss some things that happen at home. I was bummed to realize I would miss the big Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition in London in 2013… as well as Matisse in Tate Modern, the London film festival, etc….
Well, you can’t have it all.
But sometimes, these exhibitions travel around the world, too! So my host Sara and I made it into the last day of the Gaultier exhibition in Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria.
Packed with people of course on the last day, but the 30 minute wait – with Madonna and Cyndi Lauper blaring from the speakers, was well worth the wait.
The exhibition had an eerie feature – the mannequins being mostly blank faced… but some had faces projected onto them, with eyes moving and, in the case of the master himself, even talking.
Gaultier’s crazy…. in a good way. I loved to see the over-the-top couture…but his Prêt-à–porter is best. Elegant, somewhat androgynous, playing with gender, putting men in skirts and women in suits…
And then there’s of course the corset, a theme throughout his career and apparently stemming from his grandmother’s clothing.
Turning under- into outerwear, he put the corset back in fashion. And created, with Madonna, one of the most iconic, recognizable fashion features of the 20th century.
After all, show a cone bra to anyone… the recognition is instant.