Jean Paul Gaultier's Fashion Freak Show

Fashionistas, freaks, and freaky fashionistas are devouring a delightfully French sweet treat courtesy of Jean Paul Gaultier's Fashion Freak Show. It’s the jewel in the crown of this year's Brisbane Festival, staged in the massive South Bank Piazza venue.  

Jean Paul Gaultier is a globally renowned figure in the world of fashion, haute couture, and costume design. His illustrious career spans five decades, and his influence reaches across fashion, dance, music, and cinema. Madonna’s cone bra? That’s Gaultier. The superb costumes in The Fifth Element, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, and The City of Lost Children (to name a few personal favourites), also Gaultier. There's no denying his works have left an indelible mark on our culture since his first fashion show in the mid-1970s.

Now Gaultier is making a different mark on the stage with a show concept he says he's had since he was a boy. Take Folies Bergère, dial up the fashion element to 11, add some cute teddy bears, a dash of punk, a big chunk of inclusivity, and a cup of club kid, then overlay an autobiography and you’ve got it. Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show explores Gaultier’s life and loves, inspirations and passions, celebrating those who have lifted him up, and cheekily lampooning those who sought to drag him down during his illustrious career.

It's a fascinating look into what has most influenced the designer through the decades. Gaultier’s inspirations reach beyond sailor boys and sexy corsetry (although they do play their part). The fashion designer also expresses how inspired he was by Josephine Baker, Pierre Cardin, London punks, the 80s and 90s club scene, Pierre et Gilles, Tom of Finland, Madonna, Catherine Deneuve and many more celebrities and pop culture moments across 50 years.

Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show is a visual feast and doesn’t disappoint when it comes to the level of spectacle. All of the live performers display impressive dance skills and Marion Motin’s choreography is fun, sexy and lively. The astounding animations and mobile digital displays, and the ways they interplay with the live performance, are so impressive and clever. Justin Nardella’s set design and his video co-design with Renaud Rubiano, alongside the work of lighting designer Per Hörding, are literal and figurative highlights. The visual dynamism is perfectly supported by music arranger and orchestrator Nile Rogers, who takes you on an aural journey through punk, disco, new wave, and funk—the soundtrack to Gaultier’s success story.

While it’s a ton of fun, the Fashion Freak Show isn’t superficial nonsense. Creator, writer, director, and costume designer Jean Paul Gaultier, with co-director Tonie Marshall, has created a show with a great sense of humour, a loving heart and soul, and a message of inclusivity. It’s a story of love and loss, trials and triumphs, embracing one’s own freaky side, and seeing the beauty within everyone. There are also plenty of laughs to be had along the way and, of course, it’s very sexy and oh so chic.

Jean Paul Gaultier's Fashion Freak Show is a must see for anyone who is enthusiastic about fashion, audiences who enjoy modern dance, and those who appreciate a good autobiography.

Kitty Goodall

Photography by Mark Senior