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Marlene Dietrich’s transgressive shadow lingers at the Jean Paul Gaultier show
At the Jean Paul Gaultier Fall/Winter 2026-2027 show, Duran Lantink makes his mark with a deliberately transgressive collection, in which the presence of Marlene Dietrich still lingers.
By Delphine Roche.
Marlene Dietrich’s voice accompanied the Jean Paul Gaultier Fall/Winter 2026-2027 show, the second collection designed by its creative director Duran Lantink. Marked by a festive boldness that celebrates the contemporary fluidity of gender, the Dutch designer’s first runway had previously surprised part of the fashion press, which called for a more serious wardrobe.
Duran Lantink establishes himself as new creative director
Winner of the Lagerfeld Prize at the LVMH Prize in 2024, the designer has, since his appearance on Parisian catwalks, showcased his talent as a master botanist able of hybridizing garments to create new typologies for versatile and innovative pieces. These mutations soon extended to the body itself through prosthetics and padding that blurred the boundary between anatomy and clothing. When Duran Lantink was appointed, expectations were huge.
Marlene Dietrich, a gender icon
The show he presented on March 8th was greeted with several rounds of applause. A sign of the designer’s success. During his years of practice, the great couturier Jean Paul Gaultier managed to forge a unique emotional bond with his audience. He carved out a singular place in the fashion landscape thanks to his ability to combine humour and virtuosity, playful wit and an ultra-precise knowledge of masculine and feminine classics. It was precisely at this point that Duran Lantink struck, developing a spirit of subversion woven into a wardrobe offering many perspectives.
Inspired by Marlene Dietrich, an icon who, nearly a century ago, transgressed the boundaries of gender and cultivated a singular ambiguity, the show celebrated play and the freedom to reinvent oneself. It brought together the theatrical, performative vibe of new generations and the art of reversal that has long defined the house, in a unique way. Indeed, Jean Paul Gaultier famously turned underwear into clothing and the men’s ganster or banker jackets into women’s garments…
Mischievous and subversive fashion at Jean Paul Gaultier
Surprised to discover significant gaps in the house archives, as explained in the show notes, Duran Lantink understood that the reason for these absences lay in Jean Paul Gaultier’s deeply irreverent attitude toward his own creations. The designer did not hesitate to reuse them in other collections, anticipating the wave of upcycling that lies at the heart of his successor’s approach. Tailored jackets with cinched waists, along with numerous pieces featuring the house’s mythical corset, testify to the young prodigy’s rigorous fidelity to the master. Elsewhere, technical outerwear pieces merge with coats made from wool cloth.
A series of spectacular dresses sees its proportions radically redefined, featuring oversized musketeer cuffs and a plastron rising up to the chin. Cowgirl, femme fatale, mountaineer or toreador, a whole gallery of characters steps forward and embraces that sense of playful displacement. On a second-skin velvet bodysuit, the suggestion of briefs and a bra extends far beyond the silhouette, as though gender itself had definitively become an accessory, a prosthesis external to the body.
Necklaces and bracelets looking like rubber tyres complete this liberating and exuberant tableau. Why? “Because after all, why not?”, Duran Lantink mischievously suggests. The designer has undoubtedly found his footing in the most compelling way.
All the looks from the Jean Paul Gaultier Fall/Winter 2026-2027 show
