Capital-F Fashion, lowercase-f freak
How do you merge old-world Parisian couture with technologies that didn’t exist when the métier was invented? Apparently by 3D scanning Leon Dame’s torso and printing him a molten sideways body. Since taking the helm at Jean Paul Gaultier, we’ve watched Duran Lantink progress from the intentionally provoking nude illusion suit, through a surprisingly restrained, almost office-core outing, to… whatever deliciously strange organism walked down the runway this week with his couture debut.
This collection was filled with archival references – the jeans jacket JPG debuted as couture in 1977, to motor coats, and one of the cleverest callbacks, models emerged wearing blunt Cleopatra bobs crowned with oversized silver buttons, reviving one of Jean Paul Gaultier’s own futuristic metallic headpieces, but through Lantink’s distinctly Dutch lens, as he referenced Zeeuwse knopen, the ornate silver filigreed buttons traditionally worn in Zeeland’s folk costume. It’s a motif he’s explored before in collaboration with the Zeeuws Museum, inflating traditional Dutch dress into something surreal. Enlarged and made into a wig of armour: french couture meets Dutch regional heritage somewhere in ancient Egypt.
The silhouettes, meanwhile, seemed to move beyond the inflated bulbous proportions that have become something of a Lantink trademark. Instead, volume escaped sideways. A feathered teal bodice extended into a trailing maroon bustle that hung from the back like an actual bird’s tail, or the backside of a wasp. Multiple dresses had the tule bottom, normally attached somewhere around the waist down, now take architectural escape routes. either protruding straight forward through the bust, hanging backwards like a tule tail, or even double-whammy sideways: one princess-blue gown let clouds of tulle escape through large round openings at the side, leaving the front startlingly bare, just legs and bodice. Duran was referencing 18th century court dress – but make it even more uncomfortable, impractical, even dysfunctional, but it couldn’t help but remind me of drag, the glorious logic of a swimsuit carrying an otherwise impossible amount of drama, or those peak-era Victoria’s Secret spectacles where the actual garment became secondary to the architectural fantasy strapped onto it. As Duran is someone whose work has always embraced camp, queer performance and the joyful artificiality of genderfucking body enhancement — this feels like drag logic, pageant logic, and kitchy Victoria’s Secret Angel logic made into capital F fashion. That same spirit appeared in a gleaming red plastic corset that looked like it had wandered off the set of a forgotten seventies sci-fi film. Complete with visible bolts, it distorted the body just enough to enhance armour into fantasy and beauty—somewhere between Barbarella, superhero comics and classic Gaultier. Another model appeared wearing little more than a black maillot and a ribbon trailing from his hair all the way to the floor, like an especially theatrical nineteenth-century dandy who’d accidentally found himself at couture week. It’s all delightfully queer-coded.
Lantink’s worlds remain populated by wonderfully peculiar creatures. There’s something faintly Boschian about his couture: bodies stretching beyond themselves, beauty flirting with grotesque. The images don’t do the collection justice (the looks truly need a three dimensional viewing). As always, netizens will continue debating whether it’s genius or nonsense—couture seems to attract that more than any other discipline—but this collection felt like another step towards winning people over. However strange it became, it never forgot to be beautiful.
