The art of combining the pleasure of looking good with igniting desire in others, seduction has been perfectly symbolised over the years by the changing face of fashion and beauty ideals.
Very early in his career, Jean Paul Gaultier broke all the rules and reinvented the idea of women's fashion, instilling glamour and humour into a woman's wardrobe to make her even more stunning.
His vision of femininity and seduction is unique.
His designs truly echo the ever-changing face of society, which he has constantly re-invented both within his fashion as well as his fragrances.
From the 80s, when woman first began to break out from the masculine straitjacket of one-way seduction, by way of the 90s when she definitively broke away from the dominant male, right through to the new millennium which saw a reconciliation and the invention of a more diverse type of seduction, Gaultier was ever-present throughout all these phases, often a fore-runner.
    
THE 80s: WHEN SEDUCTION WAS SYNONYMOUS WITH EMANCIPATION

During the early 80s, whilst bourgeois styling ruled, women began to quietly break away.
In Paris, a young fashion designer by the name of Jean Paul Gaultier had just launched his own brand, offering women a new and liberating style.
He invented fashion for strong-willed women, offering ostentatious lingerie: rather than burning bras, he put them on display, as if to express a kind of liberated femininity.
The Gaultier woman became a female James Bond for the Autumn-Winter 1979-80 collection, tottering around in leather mini skirts and mock leather trousers. In 1981, women became sorceresses and even began to borrow from the masculine wardrobe: Gaultier had created the feminine-masculine look!

 The all-powerful macho man had been well and truly toppled from his pedestal. Gaultier began to have fun and declared the arrival of 'the male object', going so far as to suggest that men should borrow from women's wardrobes by creating the very first skirts for men (Spring-Summer 1985).


Running in parallel, a new feminine figure was emerging: that of the Working Girl who wanted it all: sex, power and success. By day, she reigned over a world of men who fell at her feet, dressed in an androgynous trouser suit and brandishing a document holder. In the evening she unleashed her seductive side, vamped up in a leather corset with outrageous make-up, designed to seduce anyone who fell under her spell.
Around this time, Gaultier also embraced the trend for disproportionately wide shoulders and nipped-in waists, but always with his own unique twist.
When masculine domination threatened to make a comeback, Jean Paul Gaultier quashed it with his Autumn-Winter 1989-90 catwalk show entitled 'Women among Women'. Having vamped it up in a provocative style, female seduction no longer needed its main object of desire.


THE 90s: AGGRESSIVE SEDUCTION

Women were now in control of their own bodies, femininity, beauty and values. This heralded the arrival of 'top models' and their subsequent rise to fame, as celebrated in George Michael's video Freedom.

Gaultier entitled his collections French Cancan, a contemporary interpretation of the outrageous dancing girls, Cavalières et Amazones des temps modernes representing omnipotent female warriors, and Parisienne Punk... an eclectic range.

1993 was a pivotal year in the fashion designer's history. His first perfume was born, named Classique, featuring a voluptuous body-shaped bottle encased in a metal corset. A carnal and enchanting fragrance based on roses, orange blossom, vanilla and amberwood for a fearless and triumphant woman who is comfortable with her own sensuality and proud of her femininity. A work of genius, making a stand in an androgynous era where genders were blurred. Gaultier broke all these rules, as showcased by his advertising images, and instead moved towards the vision of a voluptuously curved madonna with extrovert powers of seduction, full of contrasts, that was to become his theme for the next decade.  In contrast to feminine ideals of traditional perfumes, the Classique woman is sensual in the extreme, deliberately sexual and provocative. She flaunts her femininity and takes the lead in the game of seduction.

A woman who finally takes over the reins of power with the birth of the first fragrance for men in 1995, Le Male, in the legendary advert created by Jean-Baptiste Mondino in 1997. It simply features a long and lingering kiss, the longest in the history of advertising, between a sailor and an uninhibited woman. She blows away stereotypes by bending her partner over her thigh to kiss him better.

2000 AND BEYOND: RECONCILIATION AND THE MOVE TOWARDS MORE DIVERSE SEDUCTION

The new millennium heralded a truce between the sexes.
Seduction was no longer seen as a weapon, but was now recognised as just one of the many facets of intimacy.
And so the fashion world now began to see the emphatic return of a kind of femininity that embodied yet parodied fabulously delicious chic 50s styling. From then on, women were to win all the battles. They experimented with the ideas of seduction from the period, but in a liberated and uninhibited style; above all, women were reconciled with men.
Vamps and burlesque striptease dancers such as Dita Von Teese reigned triumphant, and the global success of the Mad Men series, set in the late 50s America, reinforced the trend. Jean Paul Gaultier had fun with these ultra-feminine lines, adding his own twists to enhance the look. Following the era of Japanese minimalism and the androgynous figures Made in America, the women on his catwalks exuded calm assurance as well as supreme and solid femininity; the Gaultier woman had fun with her clothes, wore less make-up, but made herself all the more desirable. Seduction was no longer outrageous, but instead became a more subtle game. During the first decade of this century, the Gaultier woman was mostly Parisian-chic, baby-doll, glam-rock or even a country girl, ballerina or bad girl. But this did not detract from her decidedly feminine and definitively couture style.

For Autumn-Winter 2009-10, Gaultier sent his X-rated collection down the runway.
Exploring the art of sophisticated bondage via a game of peek-a-boo through fishnet, he presented a succession of intermingled Xs.
Bodies were naked under corsets made from leather, lace, chiffon and, of course, fishnet; revealing tantalisingly bare flesh in a show filled with purely sophisticated eroticism. Women became objects of desire; powerful and desirable women who also know how to be dominating and decisive.
This vision of the X-rated woman gave rise to Classique X Collection, a brand new women's perfume by Gaultier. It embodies confident sensuality and triumphant femininity, combining pleasure with suggestiveness. A supremely feminine woman who shows just a hint of bare skin through fine mesh, almost like an optical illusion.
Her barely-there lingerie tantalisingly reveals her skin. Its fragrance brings a new freshness to Classique: mandarin, bergamot and orange blossom combined with more sensual notes of peony, vanilla and iris.

The Gaultier woman is definitively liberated and confident...