L'Enfant Terrible

It's easy to see why Jean-Paul Gaultier was dubbed l'enfant terrible by the fashion world. His sense of fashion is simultaneously twisted and childishly whimsical. Walking through the designers fashions is like taking a trip through his mind. And the trip is delightfully imaginative.

The exhibit started out with a welcome from the designer as well as a display of Gaultier's Virgins collection. A subversion of classic religious images of the Virgin Mary, the collection is both sacrilegious and a genuflection to the womanly wiles of Mary. In short, awesome. It's hard to imagine wearing these garments outside of a theatrical context but each piece is a clear statement.

A Tale of Two Exhibits

During my travels, I was lucky enough to end up near two major fashion exhibits. The first was the Jean-Paul Gaultier exhibit at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal and the second was the Alexander McQueen exhibit at The Met in New York. Both were incredible representations of the fashion designers' art and my hat off to the curators of the exhibits. Each created a world and incredible back drop to take in the artist's work. But the feel of each was very different and I think a lot of that had to do with the museums themselves.