This year, Classique, Jean Paul Gaultier’s first fragrance, celebrates its 20th anniversary. An anniversary celebrating more than a fragrance, but a phenomenon. 20 years of femininity, subtle eroticism and triumphant seduction.
Designer Jean Paul Gaultier, fashion’s enfant terrible, is a visionary who has brought and continues to bring his vision of femininity and feminine seduction to his creations. A unique, singular and powerful vision, reinterpreting fashion codes that he has never ceased to interpret and divert with humor and talent. Jean Paul Gaultier’s universe showcases and sublimates women, drawing inspiration from the classic and universal figures of feminine seduction.
In 1993, Jean Paul Gaultier imagined the essence of woman, a veritable olfactory challenge. He created a bewitching trail, embodying rose, orange blossom, vanilla and amber wood. And what could be better than a glass sculpture with sensual curves, representing the woman’s body, as the setting for this trail. Jean Paul Gaultier has made this iconic bust his standard-bearer. The Classique woman appears as a conqueror who assumes both her power of seduction and her uninhibited femininity. A vision of genius on the part of the designer, for the 90s were indeed those of androgyny and gender confusion. Gaultier transcended the codes that would later be used in all his advertising visuals, and created a Madonna with sensual curves, full of contrasts: the outline of the next decade’s reconciliation. The antithesis of traditional perfumery representations of women, the Classique woman is sensual to the extreme, deliberately sexual in her provocations.
Over the past 20 years, Classique has never ceased to evolve, and Jean Paul Gaultier takes great pleasure in dressing it up with humor and refinement. From summer variations to Christmas festivities, these ephemeral corsets are eagerly awaited by collectors. Among the most memorable, we recall the black velvet sheath corset of 1998, echoing the Haute Couture summer collection of the same year. But also the orange “Bien Roulé” corset in 2005, with oversized breasts reminiscent of the Barbès Autumn-Winter 1984-1985 collection. And then there’s the resolutely iconic Classique perfume extract, released in 1993, which wears pink metal armor on its glass skin. So many pieces sewn into the bottle, tattooed, embroidered, molded with the same delicacy as a Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture dress.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Classique fragrance, Jean Paul Gaultier has created a brand-new bottle. A splendor taken from the Spring-Summer 2012 Haute Couture show. Taking its cue from the dress that closed the show, the bottle draws the sensual shapes of the revisited corset on its skin. To achieve this, the bottle has been entirely reworked. Like a piece of Haute Couture, a high-precision mold was created especially to celebrate Classique’s 20th anniversary. Reflecting a luminous aura according to the ambient lighting, the thermolustré effect on the surface reveals the bust’s venomous beauty. As for the metal can, the tin that Jean Paul Gaultier had the idea of diverting from the food shelves to make a precious jewel case, it takes on a subtly pearly blush-pink hue, engraved with the relief of the dress. Like a hip movement undulating on the packaging. Named “Belle en Corset”, this universal bottle concentrates all the codes of the Maison Jean Paul Gaultier.
The Jean Paul Gaultier Classique collector’s edition “Belle en Corset” is available as a limited edition from April 29, 2013. Exclusively at Nocibé and Galeries Lafayette Haussman.
Cette publication est également disponible en : Français (French)
