The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier. From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk is a phenomenon that has wowed over a million visitors on its international tour. In its tenth stop here in Paris, after Montréal, Dallas, San Francisco, Madrid, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Brooklyn, London and Australia, the show is a high point in Jean Paul Gaultier’s career.

Gender bender
It seems an appropriate moment then for one of modern androgyny’s pioneers to see his world-touring exhibition come to a triumphant finale. The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk is arriving at the Grand Palais in Paris, the designer’s hometown, this month. Gaultier, who recently retired from ready-to-wear design, has been a creative force in fashion for nearly four decades.

Address: Grand Palais, les Galeries nationales
3 Avenue du Général Eisenhower
75008 Paris

Photographs: Getty Images

The exhibition features more than 120 works, among them as sketches by hand of genius, clothes, accessories, video displays, rare photographs of the designer made by his friends as well as promotional materials. Lagerfeld has created about 40,000 sketches for Fendi alone in the 50 years of cooperation. More than half a century Lagerfeld dedicates his life to fashion and it seems that he is not going to stop. His ambitious creations are relevant as his activity covers everything from the issue of clothing and accessories to the interior design.

Karl Lagerfeld is celebrated as a fashion genius not only for continuously revitalising classics like the Chanel suit, but also for endlessly reinventing himself. Having realised by the early 1960s that the future of fashion could not lie in haute couture alone, Lagerfeld embraced the younger ready-to-wear (prêt-à-porter) lines: ‘Fashion that does not reach the streets is not fashion’ (Lagerfeld). In addition to clothing, Lagerfeld designs a wide range of accessories to accompany his collections. Equally progressive in matters of distribution and marketing, he advocates bold ideas and a paradigm change in the fashion industry. Since the 1990s Lagerfeld has been complementing his work for luxury brands with collaborations with companies that produce affordable clothes for mass audiences. In 2004 he was the first well-known designer to create an exclusive collection for the Swedish fashion retailer H&M – a successful concept that has since continued with other designers, among them Stella McCartney, Comme des Garçons and Versace.

‘Modemethode’, Karl Lagerfeld’s ‘fashion method’, is his ambitious, all-encompassing approach: from the initial sketch to the finished garment, from the accessories, the architectural setting and music of the fashion shows, to the photographs and graphic design of press material, advertising, catalogues and window displays –  every last little detail is devised by the designer himself.

Photography: Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany

Karl Lagerfeld's newspaper goes online

The founder of an international trade show Tranoï in Paris talks about fashion buyers wants and needs

Ukrainian Fashion Week has just finished in Kiev. The designers brought their garments to Paris to the Tranoï trade show. The founder of the trade show Michael Hadida reflects of the fashion week and reveals the secrets for success in fashion business. 

The essence of fashion is that it reflects on the world that is changing in front of us. In Ukraine it is particularly noticeable. Not just a revolution in society occurred here but also a huge evolution in terms of creativity.

It sounds pretentious but I came to Kiev for inspiration. I wanted to feel the mood of the Ukrainian Fashion Week, wanted to find out what makes it so special.

The Ukrainian Fashion has an enormous potential. It is something very powerful and noticeable. On the one hand fashion here defines cultural roots. On the other - a very difficult life span. It is strange but the economic crisis and the war only benefits the creative people.

I was surprised that every day at the Ukrainian Fashion Week was almost as intense as in Paris. Of course, I did not like every single piece. But there are five designers who seem to be very interesting. Sorry, I will not mention names. I hate to name names. No, I will not tell. No.

I do not specialize in the new names, I find those who will be new names tomorrow. That is my job.

It's not about the clothes. Fashion is a form of art - a unique form of thinking.

How do you become successful? How much are you willing to pay for my answer?

What do people want today? A surprise. They need something completely new. They dream of escape from everyday reality. It is necessary to make them say, "Why I had not thought of that?" or "I was waiting for this for so many years!"

Important to the success is the authenticity. Genius. And the extra cost.

In the fashion world the most important thing is the first impression. The guests came out surprised - consider that half of the job is done.

Fashion is my life, my duty. I have to change something in fashion, make it better, help it somehow. I have very high expectations from my relationship with fashion. And I have no right to disappoint myself.

Photographs: Tranoï

Situated across the firm’s celebrated Prada Tokyo Epicenter, a new steel-canopied Miu Miu boutique offers a more intimate, “understated” experience.

Paris-based Miu Miu was established in 1993 by Miuccia Prada as a platform for exploring creative design concepts beyond her signature Prada line. Tomorrow, the iconic Herzog & de Meuron-designed Prada Tokyo Epicenter will welcome a sister Miu Miu store, also by Herzog & de Meuron, to the Aoyama district of Tokyo.

The 720-square-meter (7750-square-foot) building, sited diagonally across from the Prada Tokyo Epicenter on Miyuki street, features a canopied, metallic awning that lends the boutique a more intimate quality, in contrast to the transparency of Prada’s glass-and-steel façade. Herzog & de Meuron’s slightly-covered, box-shaped model for Miu Miu allows pedestrians to peer in at the two-story shop that, inside, is meant to resemble a spacious, comfortable home. The inside-facing surface of the exterior’s sharp-angled, steel awning meets a softened layer of textured copper that curves in at its corners. A wall and display shelves inside the boutique are paneled in a complementary copper material.

Aoyama—although not “particularly beautiful or elegant,” as the architects say— has remained a showplace for architectural innovation over the past two decades. The pair of Herzog & de Meuron projects are neighbored by the work of many esteemed architects including Toyo Ito & Associates’s Tod’s building, and Kengo Kuma’s Starbucks Coffee on Omotesando street. Prada has frequently collaborated with architecturally renowned firms on many design projects, such as Fondazione Prada with AMO in Milan, and OMA’s design for its Los Angeles boutique. 

Photographs: Miu Miu, Instagram