A boxing hall, ribbon factory, nightclub, the headquarters for Lionel Jospin’s unsuccessful 2002 presidential campaign: the building that Jean Paul Gaultier’s Paris headquarters occupies has had as many outrageously colorful chapters as the enfant terrible of fashion himself. On a crisp winter’s morning, I meet Gaultier and the London-based Irish designer Simone Rocha in the grand ballroom of this Belle Époque masterpiece, with its vaulted ceiling and rococo plasterwork. It is here, on Wednesday 24 January, that Rocha will show her haute couture spring/summer 2024 collection for the house as its latest guest designer.
Since Gaultier presented his final 50th-anniversary collection for his eponymous maison in January 2020, he has entrusted a different designer he admires to take on its creative helm each season. Rocha was preceded by Julien Dossena, Haider Ackermann, Olivier Rousteing, Glenn Martens and Chitose Abe, and has distilled her vision for Gaultier into around 40 looks. “I let each designer do what they want,” Gaultier explains. “If it was me coming in to work for someone else’s house, to offer my vision, then this is the way I would want it. Simone and I met, had lunch and then she was free. Every designer brings a fresh energy with them.”
“Like opening the windows?” Rocha offers, picking up where Gaultier leaves off. “To be a guest is a real gift, to identify with Mr Gaultier and his archive, and then to see what your spirit does in response is so interesting and exciting.”
The aforementioned archive is an invaluable resource for guest designers. Brimming with revolutionary looks, from conical bras to marinière striped gowns and satin corsets like the one forever immortalised by Madonna on her Blonde Ambition tour, it is a sight that “has to be seen to be believed,” says Rocha, who found herself particularly drawn to Gaultier’s subversive corsetry and tailoring. “To be honest, I never thought about an archive,” explains Gaultier, crediting his commercial director with the idea. “In fashion, we are always thinking about what’s next, it is always morphing and evolving. I am of the flea market generation, I am used to seeing old garments hanging on coat hangers. I respect, but I am not overly protective of clothes. I always thought that museums and archives are for when you are dead,” he laughs. On the contrary, Rocha asserts: “The Gaultier archive feels like a living, breathing thing. The clothes have a very human presence, whether it’s a stain or a piece that’s been made for a specific person.”
Rocha had “intentions rather than inspirations” for the stories she wanted to tell through her collection. To create a sense of continuity, she sees the Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture by Simone Rocha collection as the central panel of a triptych, which she has nicknamed “The Wedding”. Flanking it on either side are the spring/summer 2024 (“The Dress Rehearsal”) and autumn/winter 2024 (“The Wake”) ready-to-wear collections for her namesake line – she’ll present the latter during London Fashion Week in February.
“I wanted to make something that was attractive, provocative, playful, sensual, feminine and strong,” she says. “Haute couture is historical and romantic, and even some of my collections play on these qualities, so it’s about introducing modernity, reality, an almost scientific approach to this project, to push it forward for today.” One particularly show-stopping dress with a bustier top and exaggerated bell-shaped skirt supported by paneers references the costumes Gaultier made for the choreographer Régine Chopinot for the 1986 film Le Défilé. Crafted entirely from Irish crochet – a Rocha and Gaultier signature – the heritage fabric has been coated in silver, imbuing it with a space-age quality. Other looks, including a coat with bishop sleeves and tulle bustle, oscillate in degrees of opacity – revealing and concealing the body at different intervals – while floor-skimming gowns wax and wane in volume, much like those worn by Edith Wharton’s fictional character Countess Ellen Olenska in The Age of Innocence. “I wanted to play on this idea of restriction and release. There is a really strong feminine feeling in much of Gaultier’s work; women harnessing their power and celebrating it,” Rocha says.
As a designer, Rocha has always loved working with hand techniques, crochet, lace and embroidery among them, and Gaultier goes so far to describe her work as couture. Now she has access to an atelier and the rarified skills of modelistes, Rocha’s artisanal sensibilities have taken flight with porcelain flowers blooming across calico corsets and an abundance of intricate crystal embellishments. This dynamism reminds Gaultier of why he established his brand in 1982. “All the new prêt-à-porter designers at the time – Claude Montana, Thierry Mugler, Vivienne Westwood, Anne-Marie Beretta – were so creative they were doing their own couture, whereas the haute couture houses felt dead and old,” Gaultier says. He decided to branch out into haute couture in 1996, largely because he thought its nostalgia and quieter, ethereal nature would be a fun juxtaposition to ready-to-wear, which were all about “big shows and stages.” Rocha, meanwhile, has relished the slower, more focused and intimate way of working, and although she may not share the same mother tongue as the atelier staff, they speak the same “creative language.”
While some people were surprised by the collaboration with Gaultier, Rocha was not. Gaultier’s back catalogue has been a touchstone at various points throughout her career including her student years at London’s Central Saint Martins. Beyond fabrications and joint Gaultier-Rocha muses (Lily Cole, Karen Elson and Kirsten Owen have walked both brands’ shows), an appreciation for the emotive power of clothing is perhaps their most vibrant common thread. For the ongoing exhibition Echo at Antwerp’s MoMu (until 25 February 2024), which looks at the connection between clothing and memory through the lens of Rocha, the late French-American artist Louise Bourgeois and Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Rocha chose to display Gaultier’s stuffed teddy bear. “Look, it’s a monster,” laughs Gaultier when Rocha pulls up a photo on her phone. Worn with love and its face still caked in his grandmother’s make-up, the bear wears one of the first examples of the conical bra, which Gaultier fashioned from newspaper when he was seven years old.
With stories such as that of Gaultier’s original fit model on her mind as she designed, Rocha’s sculptural silhouettes became more than a sartorial statement. The conical bras reimagined in the shape of thorns, for instance, are a nod to the roses Gaultier would give the models backstage after a show. “The underpinning of each piece has been carefully considered, to the point that when you see the physical garment you can feel the person in it,” Rocha concludes. “Seeing all the client’s mannequins in the atelier changed my perspective of clothes overnight, because they became clothes for people of all shapes and sizes. Couture is seen as something that is untouchable, but it is all about soul—that is what makes it special.”