Editor’s note: As part of Vogue Runway’s ongoing efforts to document the history of fashion shows, we are closing out 2025 by adding newly digitized shows to the site. This fall 1998 couture collection was presented in Paris on July 17, 1998.
Contemporary reports of Jean Paul Gaultier’s fall 1998 couture offer two backstories. Reuters wrote that the models were styled after “femmes fatales”—imagine Esther Cañadas in a sweater and plaid skirt and Anneliese Seubert in the deepest purple velvet as a latter-day Brigitte Bardot and Maria Callas, respectively. Then there is the Yves angle. The New York Times noted that when Gaultier appeared for his bow, he “told Pierre Bergé, Saint Laurent’s president, who was in the front row, that he had created an homage to Saint Laurent.” This was likely a reference to the finale specifically. The show came to a romantic close with Tanel Bedrossiantz and Teresa Lourenco appearing under a cloud of tulle wearing complementary Aran fisherman’s sweaters. Hers featured a cross and a heart, and his read Je t’aime. They seem to nod to Yves Saint Laurent’s matrioshka-inspired cocoon bride of 1965.
This collection did indeed have the high elegance associated with YSL (whose successor, Gaultier, was often said to be), but it was signature Gaultier through and through. As with ready-to-wear, the designer’s approach was trickle up. Bomber, puffer, track suit…bring it on, make it couture, and add some sex appeal. Beaded bras were exposed, and the back of a black column gown faced in gold was engineered to look like it was peeling open.
High, double-waisted pants created a long line, and plumed arms transformed models into hybrid birds of paradise. Speaking of feathers, they were used to craft an Icelandic-style sweater, taking it from a cozy staple to something extraordinary. Elsewhere, Vogue noted that a trench dress that paid homage to Greta Garbo required “19 fittings to get exactly right,” and the Toronto Globe and Mail wrote that a “patchwork jacket was made of turn-of-the-century pearl-embroidered purses.” What a long way Gaultier had come from upcycled tin cans and tea strainers.
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