If you have seven minutes spare, you could watch the 1987 short film “La Concierge est dans l’Escalier,” written by French filmmaker and comic artist Marc Caro. If you do watch it, please tell me what it’s about! What I do know is that the plot was developed into the 1991 film Delicatessen, directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
In a hotel, a concierge is an employee who helps guests, for example by making restaurant reservations or arranging theatre tickets for them. The word concierge is also given to a person, especially in France, who looks after a block of flats and checks people entering and leaving the building. In the short film, the main character was very much a general dogsbody cleaning the communal areas of a block of flats.
Gaultier’s namesake womenswear collection of 1988 is extremely eclectic and celebrates femininity and empowerment. The collection featured a variety of looks, from feminine dresses and skirts to more masculine suits and jackets, with many Junior Gaultier pieces in the collection.
We all wear uniforms
The main theme seemed to be combining uniforms from the working class with 80s power dressing, using traditionally masculine fabrics like pinstripes and houndstooth. An example is an apron with a muted floral pattern giving the illusion of chic stains, beneath a beautifully tailored pinstripe jacket, accompanied by a scarf. Talking of silhouettes, a burgundy rowing blazer with black and gold stripes, accented with a nautical patch, makes an appearance. What makes this item so special are the darts that pull the waist in, emphasising the hips and turning it into a body shaper jacket – something JP developed further with his bodysuit jackets.
I wonder if this collection is a social comment on the growth of the income gaps between the richest and the poorest members of society that the 80s saw. In the UK, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s policies hit the poor the hardest with savage cuts to benefits and housing.
Don’t knock what you don’t understand
Throughout the show, Gaultier’s very own concierge, a scruffy-looking woman in curlers, sat on a platform near the runway, glued to a television set. She ignored the whole show until the end, when she chased the models off the runway with her broom, exclaiming that Mr. Gaultier was pretentious and his designs were incomprehensible. Was this a dig at those fashion writers who criticised what they didn’t understand in his work?
Rubber and bones
Returning to the Junior line, the collection featured the most amazing, vibrant and avant-garde pieces, none so more out there than a latex flower-embellished pencil skirt. As a child, I had a powder blue 1960s rubber swim cap with 3D flowers on it, but it didn’t give the same punk vibe that this skirt does, through Gaultier’s avant-garde use of materials. One Junior Gaultier item of clothing of mine from this collection is an off-the-shoulder fitted denim corset top. It combines an elegant silhouette with the materials of the working class, a luxurious satin bow fastener in contrast with the tough denim.
The jacket featured in this article is a work of art in a thick nylon fabric. The hardwearing material, reminiscent of workwear, sports a slightly luxurious sheen and is adorned with a delicate embroidered skull and crossbones. From a distance, these menacing body parts could be flowers. When up close, their big eyes and open mouths look slightly comedic. (I love that the eyes and mouth stitching have created holes in the fabric.) When this jacket is viewed alongside its counterparts, the theme of the collection gives it more weight, in my opinion.
Denim bustier with satin bow.
Close-up of the skull and crossbones embroidery.