Jean Paul Gaultier: "We're All Beautiful Freaks"

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French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier: Old age is 'associated with approaching death'

Photo: Lennart Preiss / dpa

Jean Paul Gaultier is now 70 years old - and thinks that the fashion world still makes aging a taboo.

“I guess people still associate old age with an approaching death and that's why they don't like it that much.

But that's a shame," said the fashion designer of the German Press Agency.

"I remember wanting to do a collection with white-haired models only -- true white or gray hair, not wigs," Gaultier recalls.

A journalist told him it wouldn't work because women didn't want to identify with it.

"Gosh, that's wrong," said Gaultier.

"We all walk this path at some point and that's why we have to change the way we look at old age."

»Because people are slow«

The Frenchman, who put men in skirts and Madonna in her iconic gold corset, was one of the first to also rely on models that did not correspond to the classic ideal of beauty, were fatter or smaller - and more diverse.

It took a very long time for other parts of the industry to follow Gaultier's example – "because people are slow," according to Gaultier.

Certain rules and certain codes would have defined the fashion world for a long time.

It takes time to change that.

“It's similar to politics or public authorities.

I am very happy that people are more open today, because I think there are many who are happy that people are so different.«

Gaultier shaped entire fashion decades and was long considered the "enfant terrible" of the scene because of his provocative designs.

Two years ago, the now 70-year-old, whose name has also become a perfume brand, said goodbye to the catwalk with a big haute couture show - but not completely from the fashion world.

Last year, for example, he appeared as a guest juror in Heidi Klum's casting show "Germany's Next Top Model" and once again caused a stir with his designs because he put the young models in tight leather outfits.

In the coming year, Gaultier's "Fashion Freak Show" about his five decades in the fashion circus will be coming to Germany for the first time and can be seen from July 20th to 27th in the Munich Isar Philharmonic.

"My Fashion Freak Show shows above all: We are all freaks and we are all beautiful freaks," said Gaultier.

»Beauty is everywhere and comes in all forms: different genders, different bodies, different aesthetics.«

ala/dpa