Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show | Jean Paul Gaultier & Brisbane Festival
Image: Genevieve Girling
Jean Paul Gaultier has solidified himself as a staple of the modern fashion world. We think of the greats and his name is one of the first to emerge. A self-described explosive combination of revue and fashion, Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show depicts the extravagant life of fashion’s enfant terrible against a backdrop of his generation’s defining political and cultural moments. But as the work proves his journey to fashion superstardom was not an easy one. Dreams of teddy bears in cone bras and high glamour cabaret revues are all to easily smacked down by the hand of fashion bureaucracy and ignored by the fickle eye of high society.
A Disco-Funk-Pop-Rock-New Wave-Punk playlist (that I definitely need the link to) sets the tone for this epic ride through Gaultier’s but also fashion’s history. Audiences are dazzled as song, dance, high fashion, burlesque, circus, film collide in a campy cunty kaleidoscope of highest calibre cabaret. Gaultier’s life, love, and legacy are all on display here for our viewing pleasure. And pleasure really is the word for it. The fashion freak show is sensual, evocative, provocative, sexual, and downright vulgar (highly complementary). I don’t know that I’ve seen the emulation of so many sex acts onstage in a single performance before. It was also a personal delight to see vogue femme and other Ballroom styles like arms control and old way utilised in a non-Ballroom work by people from the Ballroom community. There is no ‘noguing’ here and we truly love to see it.
Image: Genevieve Girling
When we think about this work alongside the Coco Chanel ballet that is about to make its way to our stages thanks to Queensland Ballet and the popularity of War Paint (a musical that focuses on beauty juggernauts Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein), it seems the beauty and fashion greats are the zeitgeists next major source of inspiration for biographical performance. I frankly couldn’t be more excited for the kind of work it will bring to our stages if they’re even half the experience that Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show was.
Fun, flashy, and fantastical; Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show is a love letter to fashion geeks, theatre freaks, and the super chic everywhere. It’s a spectacular night of entertainment that takes to a world where everything and everyone can be (and is) beautiful. You do not want to miss it.
‘Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show’ plays at the South Bank Piazza from 30 August to 15 September as a part of the 2024 Brisbane Festival.
Image: Mark Senior
