PARIS — Jean Paul Gaultier has tapped Duran Lantink to be its inventive director, the Puig-owned model confirmed Tuesday.
The transfer makes the Dutch designer — whose puffy, body-reshaping silhouettes and distorted prints have made him a breakout trend star — the first-ever successor to the label’s namesake founder, who grew to become well-known within the Nineteen Eighties for mixing pop theatricality and gender-fluid, inclusive storytelling with rigorous couture method.
Lantink will debut his imaginative and prescient for Jean Paul Gaultier throughout September’s Paris Style Week, staging the model’s first ready-to-wear present in over a decade. His high fashion debut is slated for January 2026.
“I see in him the vitality, audacity and playful spirit via trend that I had at the start of my very own journey: the brand new enfant horrible of trend,” mentioned Mr Gaultier, who gave his blessing to the appointment.
“Duran isn’t referencing Gaultier precisely, however you’ll find his values there in the best way he’s rethinking volumes, rethinking the physique,” mentioned managing director Antoine Gagey.
The model shuttered its ready-to-wear line in 2014, as top-end heritage manufacturers and cut-rate fast-fashion teams alike pinched designer labels that had as soon as been aspirational staples on the flooring of malls and multi-brand boutiques. For the final decade, Gaultier has proven solely high fashion, which remained a laboratory for its founder’s campy, deftly constructed designs, whereas casting a halo over its important perfume enterprise.
Since 2020, when Mr Gaultier stepped down, the model has used couture as a platform for rotating collaborations, giving designers together with Glenn Martens, Haider Ackermann, Nicolas di Felice and Simone Rocha an unprecedented alternative to strive their hand on the artisanal kind.
The model additionally revived its ready-to-wear providing with a sequence of capsule collections: collaborations with the likes of Lotta Volkova and Shayne Oliver in addition to studio-designed drops knowledgeable by the model’s archive. And regardless of the considerably scattershot technique, the enterprise has steadily rebuilt a roster of round 100 stockists along with promoting its collections straight on-line.
“There’s an actual demand for Jean Paul Gaultier, younger folks specifically are in keeping with its values,” Gagey mentioned. However taking its trend enterprise to the subsequent degree would require a extra steady method. “We’re at a stage the place we want extra consistency throughout classes and seasons,” he added.
Since reengaging with Gaultier, stockists have gravitated in direction of its entry-level luxuries like T-shirts and jersey clothes. Working with a single inventive director will permit the model to increase its credibility to new classes and stretch its propositions upmarket.
“This model is extra elevated than folks bear in mind, with a heritage that’s actually rigorous and exact. We have now a sure legitimacy in design, in luxurious to reassert — to not point out the cultural credibility that was all the time part of the model’s story,” Gagey mentioned.
Lantink, aged 38, studied on the Gerritt Gerrit Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam earlier than constructing his profile within the trade via movie star tasks like designing a pair of viral “vagina” trousers for Janelle Monae in 2018. His 2021 debut runway present, which was staged for an viewers of buzzing drones throughout coronavirus lockdowns, garnered essential reward for its modern use of upcycled supplies and transformation of archival clothes and prints.
By the point he joined the Paris ready-to-wear calendar in October 2023, he had already attracted a strong circle of assist. Boosters included stylist Jodie Barnes, “Unbelievable Man” editors Jop van Bennekom and Gert Jonkers and publicist Lucien Pagès, who cajoled editors to his outing on the ninth day of Paris exhibits.
What they noticed was compelling. Sportswear classics had been reinterpreted in unbelievable, inflated proportions. There was humour (not simply social-media-baiting gags), unconventional intercourse attraction and a way of thriller.
Lantink’s appointment at Gaultier follows huge wins on the 2025 Woolmark Prize (introduced in Milan earlier this month) and LVMH’s 2024 Karl Lagerfeld prize.
“Once I take a look at Monsieur Gaultier’s collections, it appears like he was all the time impressed by what was taking place round him, culturally, socially and politically,” the designer mentioned. “I really feel a robust connection to that method and spirit.
However Lantink’s consecration as inventive director of a serious Paris home will come as bittersweet information to some, because the designer plans to droop his namesake line to concentrate on his new alternative.
“Particularly since I’m not solely engaged on the ready-to-wear, but in addition the couture, it’s a giant duty that I take very significantly. I’ve a lot respect for Mr. Gaultier and his couture legacy, and I need to take the time to really concentrate on the savoir-faire of the extremely gifted folks within the atelier,” he defined.
“Duran is one thing that gained’t disappear,” he continued. “I’m nonetheless very wanting to discover its prospects — when the time feels proper, and once I really feel prepared and assured that I can tackle a number of issues with out compromising the standard.”
Gaultier proprietor Puig — the Barcelona-based group recognized for its prowess promoting fragrances — has steadily labored to rebalance its portfolio in recent times, shedding licenses in favour of investing in manufacturers it owns outright like Jean Paul Gaultier, Paco Rabanne, Charlotte Tilbury and Nina Ricci. Whereas the dimensions of its trend companies nonetheless pales compared to international scents like Rabanne’s “1 Million” or Gaultier’s “Le Male,” the corporate has sought to ramp up its footprint in attire, notably by buying Dries Van Noten in 2018. After an extended interval of churning via designers, it has additionally constructed a extra steady trend platform at Rabanne, the place Julien Dossena has been inventive director since 2014.
“Puig has an actual technique and ambition in trend,” Gagey mentioned.
Whereas luxurious manufacturers are presently going through headwinds worldwide, some labels that dramatically scaled again distribution in recent times are managing to bounce again with a brand new technique. LVMH’s Pucci, for one, says it’s experiencing “sturdy development” beneath designer Camille Miceli, who was introduced in to relaunch the model after it ditched a lot of its outsized boutiques in city areas in the course of the pandemic. L’Oréal’s Mugler, in contrast, parted methods with its designer of seven years Casey Cadwallader after gross sales and buzz tumbled from a post-pandemic peak.
After onboarding Lantink, Gaultier’s rapid precedence might be to develop gross sales via its present channels (the model’s on-line flagship in addition to main stockists like Mytheresa, Saks and Nordstroms) in addition to working extra intently with influential shops like Dover Avenue Market (Gagey describes the Comme des Garçons-owned boutique as “re-positionnant.”)
If all goes nicely, a return to retail could possibly be within the playing cards within the medium time period. “It’s time to dream greater,” Gagey mentioned.
