Jean Paul Gaultier recalls couture heyday with Mick Jagger and George Michael

Jean Paul Gaultier says couture fashion is “all about contracts and money” these days.

The 69-year-old designer recently returned to ready-to-wear with his eponymous fashion house after retiring his haute couture show in January 2020.

And the fashion muse has admitted his couture heyday was getting to dress music legends such as Boy George, Sir Mick Jagger and the late George Michael, when it wasn’t all about the paycheque.

He told The Guardian newspaper: “I was happy when people like Boy George and George Michael were wearing my clothes, and when Mick Jagger asked me to do his show … that was real work. But today couture is all about contracts and money.”

Elsewhere, Gaultier recalled creating his iconic conical bra on a teddy bear, long before designing the adult version for Queen of Pop, Madonna.

He remembered: “I wanted a doll, not a bear, but I did its hair and used my grandmother’s makeup on it. And I made a conical bra for it: it was the first conical bra, even before Madonna’s. I grew up on television, not books, and I’d also seen this programme that showed you could cut a circle out of a circle to make a skirt, so I made a hole in one of my grandmother’s lace mats and turned it into a skirt for the bear.”

Gaultier instantly knew he wanted to work with the ‘Holiday’ hitmaker as soon as he saw her on ‘Top of the Pops’ as he “adored” her style.

He said: “I’d seen her singing ‘Holiday’ on ‘Top of the Pops’ and thought she was absolutely my style – the jewellery, the crucifixes, the way she dressed, her look – this was what I was doing with my collection. I adored her.”

Madonna would end up phoning Gaultier in 1989 to ask him to dress her, and he didn’t believe it at first, as he assumed someone was prank calling him.