The fall-winter 2025-2026 fashion season, set to take place in September and October, promises to be even more exciting now that Dutch designer Duran Lantink was appointed as creative director of the Jean Paul Gaultier brand on Tuesday, April 15. He joined the ranks of new designers appointed to significant positions in recent weeks: Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez at Loewe, Louise Trotter at Bottega Veneta, Matthieu Blazy at Chanel and Demna at Gucci. Jonathan Anderson, formerly at Loewe, is expected to take over creative direction at Dior.
Founded in 1976 by Jean Paul Gaultier, the brand of the designer long dubbed the "enfant terrible of fashion" set the tone for the Parisian style of the 1980s and 1990s: nonconformist, open to the world, joyous and provocative, while mastering the art of tailoring, so dear to French fashion. Gaultier, one of the most popular French designers, also helped to spread French fashion worldwide. Since 2014, the brand had withdrawn from the ready-to-wear calendar to focus on its haute couture activities.
The designer himself permanently put down his scissors and needles during a festive farewell show at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in 2020. Since then, his haute couture collections have been reimagined each season by a guest designer tasked with reinterpreting his archives: Chitose Abe, founder of the Japanese brand Sacai, was the first to take on the challenge in 2021. She was followed by Olivier Rousteing from Balmain, Glenn Martens from Y/Project, Julien Dossena from Paco Rabanne, Nicolas Di Felice from Courrèges and finally Ludovic de Saint Sernin, the most recent to showcase under the Gaultier banner in January.
The arrival of Lantink marks the end of this collaborative era, with the 38-year-old designer taking on all roles, and brings the house back into the ready-to-wear calendar. A 2013 graduate in fashion and textiles from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and with a master's degree from the Sandberg Instituut, also in Amsterdam, received in 2017, Lantink founded his own eponymous brand in 2019. It quickly stood out thanks to its experimental approach to clothing. He plays with volumes, not hesitating to create protrusions on the body through manipulating materials – often recycled – accentuating the hips of skirts or pants and mixing prints and patterns with ease. On April 2, he was awarded the prestigious Woolmark Prize, created in 1953 by the Woolmark Company, an Australian organization promoting wool.
"To me, Gaultier represents the ultimate house of creative spirit and savoir faire. It’s provocative, and continuously pushing boundaries. It’s the brand that brings together different disciplines around fashion to create cultural movements, changing the language of clothes and how we wear them in the streets," explained the Dutch designer in the statement announcing his appointment. "I see in him the energy, audacity and playful spirit through fashion that I had at the beginning of my own journey: the new enfant terrible of fashion," replied Gaultier.
Sold in 2011 to the Spanish group Puig – owner of Paco Rabanne, Nina Ricci, Byredo and Dries Van Noten – the Jean Paul Gaultier brand benefits from the group's strong performance, driven notably by its perfume and cosmetics activities. The Catalan company indeed posted double-digit growth in 2024, with its revenue reaching €4.79 billion, 11% more than in 2023. Lantink's first collection for Jean Paul Gaultier, due in October 2025 in Paris, will undoubtedly be one of the highlights of this season.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.