The collection opened with a sequence from photographer William KleinвЂ™s 1966 fashion-world spoof Qui ГЄtes-vous, Polly Maggoo? featuring a fashion shoot starring Peggy Moffitt and other model luminaries of the age staged as a funeral. He famously dressed Madonna in a conical bra for her 1990 Blonde Ambition Tour although he debuted the fashion look on his fall 1984 runway, he had first experimented with it on his childhood teddy bear (he used newsprint at the time), as revealed in the playful opening sequence of his 2018 cabaret, Fashion Freak Show, at ParisвЂ™s fabled Folies BergГЁre-a popular success here and perhaps a hint at a future career.ДЄs Gaultier promised, he took the ideas that he first explored on a shoestring budget and amplified them with all the technical wonders for which his remarkable haute couture ateliers are famed-and this is a designer steeped in couture, having worked alongside Pierre Cardin at the tender age of 18. He has put men in skirts and turned the corset from a symbol of the oppressed woman to that of the woman (or man) who is absolutely in control. So I was taking things like jeans and camouflage and doing funny things with them-and now I did that with my couture!вЂќ

As Gaultier explained backstage of those anarchic early collections, вЂњI was recycling things, because at the beginning I had no money.

Jean paul gaultier russian collection