Our Favorite Designers (Part 2)
Jean-Paul Gaultier
French fashion designer and past television presenter.
Gaultier never received formal training as a designer. Instead, he started sending sketches to famous couture stylists at an early age. Pierre Cardin was impressed by his talent and hired him as an assistant in 1970.
His first individual collection was released in 1976 and his characteristic irreverent style dates from 1981, and he has long been known as the enfant terrible (bad boy) of French fashion. Many of Gaultier’s following collections have been based on street wear, focusing on popular culture, whereas others, particularly his Haute Couture collections, are very formal yet at the same time unusual and playful.
Jean-Paul Gaultier produced sculptured costumes for Madonna during the nineties and has also worked in close collboration with Wolford Hosiery. He popularized the use of skirts, especially kilts on men’s wardrobe, and the release of designer collections. Gaultier caused shock by using unconventional models for his exhibitions, like old and fat women, pierced and heavy tattooed models, and by playing with traditional gender roles in the shows. This granted him both criticism and enormous popularity.
Martin Margiela
Maison Martin Margiela studied at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts along with the legendary avantgarde fashion collective the Antwerp Six. Although Margiela was only temporarily involved with the group, many still considder him to be the “7th” member of the collective. After graduation in 1980 he worked as a freelance designer for five years. Between 1985 and 1987 he worked for Jean Paul Gaultier, before showing his first collection under his own label in 1988. In 1997 he became, despite his non-traditional design, the chief designer of Hermés women’s line. During the 1980s, the Japanese avantgardists, with Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garcons), had turned the fashion scene upside-down with their eccentric and ground-breaking designs.
Martin Margiela and the Antwerp Six would carry on the work, revolting against the luxurious fashion world with garments of oversized proportions such as long arms, and with linings, seams and hems on the outside. The concept of deconstruction, also embraced by the aforementioned Rei Kawakubo, is important for the understanding of Martin Margiela’s fashion statement. Mr Margiela famously redesigns by hand objects such as old wigs, canvases and silk scarves into couture garments. Martin Margiela has been called the J. D. Salinger of the fashion world, and rightly so — he refuses to be photographed and will only be interviewed by fax. He won’t even put his name on his clothes, branding them instead with a blank label.
website Maison Martin Margiela
Yohji Yamamoto
Y’s is the first line created by Fashion Designer Yohji Yamamoto in the beginning of the seventies ( first show in 1977 in Tokyo) Yohji Yamamoto designed a collection for women based on men’s garments, cut in uncluttered shapes, washed fabrics and dark colors.These clothes expressed a functional elegance and sobriety that Yohji Yamamoto would reaffirm, a few years later with Y’s for men.
Today, Y’s and Y’s for men have taken their place as practical, day to day wear beyond the bounds of fashion and shifting trends. Yohji Yamamoto In 1981 Yohji Yamamoto presented his first Yohji Yamamoto collection in Paris and in 1984 he presented his first Yohji Yamamoto pour Homme collection Fabric is always the starting point of his design, and the superposition of clothing is what defines the best his silhouetteYohji Yamamoto clothes destructured and ample In the begining, evolved through time into something more structured , fitted to the body in a spirit of couture – with – a – twist Yohji Yamamoto + Noir.This collection is based on classic and timeless pieces of the Yohji Yamamoto line.
Each season half of the collection changes, while the other half stays the same .Yohji Yamamoto + Noir is almost entirely black with a punctuation of bright colors.Deluxe women’s ready-to-wear Yohji Yamamoto Deluxe men’s ready-to-wear Yohji Yamamoto pour Homme Women’s ready-to-wear Y’sMen’s ready-to-wear Y’S for Men This line includes Y’s for men Shirt and the “Red Label”,in refined fabrics,et which is directly inspired from the wardrobe of Mr Yamamoto. Y’s for men shirt is available only in Japan. Women’s ready-to-wear Yohji Yamamoto.
