Object: Dress
Designer:
Jean Paul Gaultier
(born 1952)
Date: Fall 1984
Medium: Orange shirred velvet
Country: France
Credit Line: Museum purchase
Object number: P92.8.1
DescriptionShort orange shirred velvet corset dress; strapless sheath with exaggerated cone bust shaping; boned and shirred along full length seams; lacing at CB
Label Text:This "corset" dress, with an exaggerated cone bust and back lacing, is one of the most iconic designs of Jean Paul Gaultier's career. He based the design and slightly faded color on a corset found in his grandmother's closet, an object that fascinated him as a young boy. His interpretation is fetishistic and unusually sexy, with a look that helped launch the 1980s craze of underwear-as-outerwear. Pop singer Madonna later adopted the torpedo-like bust into her stage costumes, furthering Gaultier's reputation as the "enfant terrible" of Paris fashion.
Exhibitions:
- Paris, Capital of Fashion
- A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk
- 50 Years of Fashion, 1947 - 1997
- Fashion and Surrealism
- The Corset: Fashioning the Body