The Western Baroque show of Spring/Summer 1989 celebrated camp and rebellious queerness, with the menswear show mixing over-the-top cowboys, baroque fops, sailors, and printed layers explicitly rejecting good taste. Male models walked in gold cowboy chaps with polka dot shorts, flower print chiffon shirts, and gold lame waistcoats. Flamboyant and homoerotic ensembles came together with a hot cowboy in mini swim briefs and vinyl gloves sharing the runway with a dandy dressed in a red double-breasted jacket, brocade waistcoat, wide yellow slacks, and a walking stick.
Gaultier is an electronic star with his high-tech collection
One of the most unique accessories I’ve ever seen is the flashing sheriff badge from “Western Baroque”, which, after some investigation, may have been conceived in 1979.
In an article for February 1984’s The Face magazine, Jean Paul Gaultier photographed and described six of his most striking creations, including a high-tech suit from 1979 consisting of a three-quarter-length leatherette jerkin with embroidered electrical circuit boards. Gaultier explained the piece’s conception “We had the idea for the circuit drawings for a long while. My friend and partner Francis Menuge is mad about electronics; he designed a pendant necklace that flashed in time with the wearer’s heartbeat. But we were never able to persuade a manufacturer to market them, so we used them for our ‘High Tech’ collection. I always work like that, taking materials or objects and finding another use for them.”
Part of the same collection, and now iconic, are the tin can bracelets. The story of their creation starts with Jean Paul opening a tin of food for his cat and wondering what use the empty tins could have. He opened the other end of the can and there was a bracelet!
“It was the same with the ashtray bag.” Explained Gaultier, “Take an ordinary ashtray, deepen it with a sleeve of leather, and you’ve got a bag! I have a lot of fun with this modernist approach. Appropriating objects for my own uses.”
Gaultier’s Autumn/Winter 1995-96 collection would pick up on the circuit board theme in a homage to Mad Max.
Alyssa Milano
Stars wearing Gaultier
A very young Alyssa Milano in 1989 wears a cropped western shirt, leopard print skirt, belt and earrings, all from the Junior Gaultier Spring/Summer collection of that year.
Promoting the collection
A magazine advert promoting the “Western Baroque” and ‘Voyage Autour Du Monde Dans 168 Tenues’ collections. If you are interested in the Jean Paul Gaultier adverts of the 80s and 90s, check out this article on the graphic designers behind the Gaultier label.
Western charms
As well as the star, symbolic of a sheriff badge, a strong motif of this season’s collections is the dollar sign used in multicolour prints for shirts, and also buttons and clasps for braces and bra tops. This belt (highly positioned on my wishlist) throws Western symbols of horseshoes and six-shooter pistols into the mix to create another novel item of Junior Gaultier accessorisation.
The designers who have plundered the rich, inspiring Western theme over the years are endless. Ralph Lauren’s Fall 1978 (conservative fringes and big belt buckles), Claude Montana’s Fall 1984 (iconic big-shouldered silhouettes and even bigger collars, in leather with a futuristic aesthetic), and Marc Jacobs for Perry Ellis’s Spring 1992 (ruffles, neckerchiefs and stetsons).
The Western concept would be revisited for Gaultier’s Spring 2009 Menswear collection, which was influenced by vintage Western films, with fitted vests and pocket watch chains with cowboy hats and bandit bandannas around the models’ necks.
