Yesterday in Paris, Duran Lantink revived a time of excess, misbehaviour and hedonism with his first collection as creative director of Jean Paul Gaultier, adopting the Junior moniker as a wink to the era that first made him fall in love with fashion’s grand provocateur.
Lantink’s work has always been preoccupied with transformation. From his early upcycled hybrids to his sculptural “bubble” forms, he has consistently used fashion as a medium for identity politics and body autonomy. His silhouettes often feel caught between decay and evolution, as if clothing were a second skin in the process of becoming something else.
That philosophy extended into his Gaultier debut. The designer made a point of not opening the doors of the Gaultier archive just yet, choosing instead to dwell in the fantasy of the brand he formed when he was younger. Jean Paul Gaultier SS26 channels the hedonistic pulse of Amsterdam’s legendary RoXY club into a fever dream of form and illusion. Reviving the brand’s rebellious Junior line from the late ’80s, Lantink distorted house codes, from the marinière stripe to the cone bra, into warped, inflated and tactile new shapes. Tattoo-printed mesh bodysuits blurred the line between skin and fabric, while sculpted breastplates, belt harnesses and hairy textures turned the body itself into an optical playground. Burgundy, mustard and sky-blue tones collided across mesh, rubbery surfaces and inflated swimwear silhouettes, balancing provocation with precision.
Lantink, who has long balanced humour with critique, translated Gaultier’s codes through a lens of distortion and freedom. The result was a kind of Duranified Gaultier, less about nostalgia and more about transformation. The fetish became form, the archive became architecture. It was not a neat debut, but a charged one, restless and confrontational. Gaultier’s world has always belonged to the misfits and shapeshifters, and Lantink gave them a new uniform, one that is louder, queerer and gloriously alive.
Last night, the enfant terrible gained a new generation, and it answers to Junior.