Say oh la la! Jean Paul Gaultier

Corsets, conical bras and bondage – Dinah Lux and friends play dress-up in archive Gaultier for an exclusive film

With only a week to go until the highly anticipated Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition – The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From Sidewalk to the Catwalk at the Barbican – this week we will be celebrating the work of the famed couturier, kicking off with a fashion film staring Jacob Mallinson Bird (aka Dinah Lux), Jonbenet Blonde, Tschan Andrews and Rodent DeCay.

Thanks to Matches Fashion and LA vintage store Decades, Jacob and friends were able to run wild with the most iconic of Gaultier archive pieces, which are currently available online exclusively to matchesfashion.com – think Madonna-esque corsets, bondage inspired leather, perfect plaids and pearlescent PVC set to send any Gaultier aficionado into a frenzy. We caught up with Jacob and friends to chat dress-up, conical bras, teddy bears, breton stripes and bondage…

What's your all time favourite Jean Paul Gaultier moment?

Tschan Andrews: It would have to be the moment of my generation, when Andrej Pejic closed the Haute Couture Spring 2011 fashion show as a bride! 

Favourite archive piece from the shoot?

Dinah Lux: The see-through embroidered leotard. Dinah loves to show a bit (or a lot) of skin... Plus the tattoos were major – they went down pretty well in boy-mode as well! 

If you had to wear one Jean Paul Gaultier outfit for the rest of your life, which would it be?

Dinah Lux: Pejic's tuxedo look from the AW11 collection. It's so brilliantly androgynous and it reminds of Helmut Newton's image of "Le Smoking". If I had that in my wardrobe, well, I wouldn't wear anything else (but it would mean I'd have to shave my chest all the time!).

Which artist or song would be the soundtrack to your solely Jean Paul Gaultier life?

Jonbenet Blonde: I think it would be something that I could give a strong walk to – Daft Punk give endless good catwalk songs as do Sleigh Bells. Either gets me stomping down the pavement.

Which Gaultier show is most memorable for you and why?

Tschan Andrews: Linda Evangelista walking up the red staircase as Frida Kahlo in 1998. Why? Because who wouldn’t want to bring art to life and have iconic twigs for hair!

If you could pick one decade to live in which would it be?

Dinah Lux: 1920’s realness. Give me a finger curled wig, some marabou and a champagne lingerie set and I am there. 

Breton stripes or bondage?

Dinah Lux: Lol. Bondage, obvs. 

Jean Paul Gaultier has been dubbed L’Enfant Terrible. What’s your most terrible trait?

Dinah Lux: I don't know what you mean. I'm an angel. 

Gaultier once gifted fashion editors turkeys at Christmas because he “admired their natural instinct for strutting like models” – what would you gift?

Jonbenet Blonde: I would gift watches to a lot of my friends as I hate people being late. Hunny, you’re given a time – so get there at that time!

He made his first conical bra for his teddy bear named Nana aged seven, what was your first bear called?

Tschan Andrews: I secretly called mine Ben, as it was the only gay character I knew on television (Eastenders) aged four or five!

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