What a lot of nice bottoms! Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show may be all about clothes, but there’s as much flesh as there is fabric here; it’s as much a celebration of bodies and sensuality and sexual freedom as it is a fabulously fun romp through the French designer’s life and career.
Thanks to Madonna’s conical bra, his signature bleached crop and Breton top and the late-night filth of TV’s Eurotrash, Gaultier occupies a place in mainstream culture few couturiers enjoy, but there’s much more to his tale, as seen in this cabaret revue that’s part biography, part catwalk show, with comic skits, songs and dance numbers.
Fashion Freak Show was originally performed at the Folies Bergère in Paris, realising a childhood dream of the boy who dressed his teddy as a showgirl. The South Bank’s Queen Elizabeth Hall is the wrong venue for a show that would thrive better somewhere more glamorous or seedy or immersive than this tasteful concert hall. Nevertheless, the multi-talented performers give it their all, touring Gaultier’s influences, from black and white movies to the London club scene, vogue battles and Josephine Baker. Some scenes are like a live photoshoot or living tableaux, others get into party mode, choreographed by Marion Motin with much waacking and vogueing, a few ace dancers among the cast, others less expert making up for it with smouldering model stares.
Everywhere the clothes are brilliantly theatrical, full of humour, beautiful craft and sensuous textures. Gaultier’s genius rests on mad juxtapositions: 18th-century pannier hoops and punk bondage, Mexican lucha libre masks with showgirl feathers, a dinner jacket turned into a toga or a half-leather-half-tutu number. It’s hard versus soft, sexy versus silly; Gaultier sends up the ridiculousness of it all and yet takes his clothes deadly seriously. The more outrageously imaginative it gets (mocking the plastic surgery craze with extra limbs prêt-a porter) the better.
This is a self-congratulatory show that’s perhaps not always as funny as it thinks it is (although a sly Karl Lagerfeld skit is very amusing) and not all of the cameos will be familiar to a UK audience, but it is a positive, celebratory fashionista extravaganza that’s a lot of fun.
• At Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, until 2 August.
