In a never-ending carousel of creative director debuts, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. We are in an era of minimalism, clean girls, a growing gender divide, and the gradual forced homogenization of society. So how do you create fashion that cuts through the noise, and the algorithm, that people won’t forget? Duran Lantink has the answer.
The Dutch designer unveiled his debut collection as Jean Paul Gaultier’s newest creative director on October 5, after a few years of rotating guest designers. Titled ‘Junior’, the controversial collection consisted of fifty-eight looks, ranging from loincloth-like unitards to full body pinstripes. The pièce de résistance, a catsuit printed with a man’s physique, genitalia and all; nothing left to the imagination. The hyper-realistic print was repeated a few times on various articles of clothing throughout the show. Many people thought the bodysuit was crass, tasteless, and that it permanently sullied the Gaultier brand’s reputation. However, if you look closer, there is a method to Lantink’s madness, a silent middle finger to the binary establishment. Lantink has always played with gender presentation, as seen in his F/W 2025 show, where a male model walked wearing a large breastplate, and a female model wore faux pecs and a six-pack. Even back in the spring, the choice was received negatively. Has the world forgotten Gaultier’s ‘enfant terrible’ reputation?
Jean Paul Gaultier was no stranger to controversy in his heyday, creating Madonna’s most iconic looks, dabbling in Communist imagery, and putting men in skirts well before Harry Styles made it hot (again). There appears to be a public disconnect between the Gaultier legacy of gender representation and experimentation and Lantink’s take on the subject. This can be explained by a number of things, including but not limited to the global rise of fascism, rollbacks on LGBTQIA+ protections, and the rapidly widening divide in ideologies of cisgender men and women. The ultimate difference, to me, is the limits of gender experimentation that Gaultier and Lantink subscribed to.
While JPG was a trailblazer and his accomplishments deserve recognition, much of his experimental work with gender presentation stayed within the confines of conventional beauty, jumping from one end of the binary to another. It was groundbreaking for the time but still subscribed to a stark male/female divide. Lantink’s designs exist in the grey area of this spectrum, and harshly challenges viewers’ ideas, opinions, and even beliefs about themselves in terms of gender. Women do not owe viewers beauty and men do not owe viewers masculinity. They don’t even owe viewers confirmation of gender. Lantink expands upon the idea that gender experimentation doesn’t mean jumping from one side of the spectrum to the other, but playing in the in-between, doubling back, going around, upside down, and leaving the binary behind altogether. Sometimes it looks absurd, even jarring, but is that not the point? Shouldn’t fashion be for yourself, your own soul, and not for others’ expectations of you? If gender experimentation is only acceptable within the confines of conventional beauty, the surface barely even gets scratched.
Furthermore, the disgust many people have expressed at Lantink’s designs often have to do with his dressing and articulation of the female form, with many justifying their feelings of uncomfortability by accusing Lantink of being a misogynist. This has been a common critique of many avant-garde leaning designers, and while misogyny absolutely does exist in fashion, it’s essential to also consider a designer’s background, beliefs, and messaging behind the collection. It is also important to note that many of the critiques around Lantink’s brand of expression regard the degrees of femininity that are expressed. If he puts a male model in a breastplate, it’s a perversion of femininity, but if he puts a female model in a catsuit printed with a man’s body, it’s a suffocation of it. The majority of the negative press around Lantink’s debut, and from his spring collection, rests on how he overlays the male and female physique. Perhaps it’s up to the viewer to ask themselves why, when they see the human body experimented with in this way, they jump to the conclusion of fetishization or degradation. Again, an either/or choice, jumping from one end of a spectrum to another without questioning what, how, or why. Gender experimentation isn’t a mockery of womanhood, but a celebration and acknowledgement of the good, bad, and ugly that come with being a woman in all its forms. Many other exaggerations of the female form exist in fashion, from merkins to corsets to bustles, only acceptable as long as it appeals to the viewer. It’s becoming increasingly clear and concerning that there is a stark line between acceptable and unacceptable gender experimentation. It’s important that we remember not just as an industry, but as a society, that policing someone’s creativity and identity, regardless of how it manifests, is a harsh step towards fascist ideologies and legislation. True freedom of expression is not without critique, but there’s a massive difference between critique and condemnation.
Words by Lola Barajas
Graphic by Aubrey Lauer