Runway in France: subversive shows

PARIS -- Tuesday, Jean Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood challenged the adage that you can never be too rich or too thin with ready-to-wear collections that were full of wit and subversion.\nSome would call it biting the hand that feeds you, but provocation is second nature for the veteran designers, who both started out in the 1970s era of punk.\nGaultier celebrated 30 years in business with a retrospective of some of his most iconic looks, including the conical bra made famous by Madonna on her 1990 Blond Ambition tour, in front of guests including singers Janet Jackson and Lenny Kravitz.\nFor spring-summer 2007, he was inspired by the 1980s craze for aerobics. In Gaultier's hands, this meant high-heeled sneakers, dumbbells made from disco glitter balls and an overweight model in a corset who drew loud cheers from the audience.\nSo much for the debate about skinny models.\n"Working out and aerobics are great, but it's also great that she feels good about herself. The important thing is to feel comfortable with your own body," he said, referring to the plus-size model.\n"I have always used slightly older people and also curvy girls. There is beauty in everything, not only in the very thin," he added.\nGaultier was the first designer to pluck models from the street, earning him a reputation as the enfant terrible of French fashion. Since adding couture to his activities in 1997, he has grown in stature and is now considered the spiritual heir of Yves Saint Laurent.\nThe genial Frenchman said his latest collection recaptured some of the insouciance of his early days.\n"It's a play on sports clothes to turn them into the complete opposite," he explained.\nThis included swinging flapper dresses with insets of athletic mesh, perspex visors crowned with tiaras and slinky hooded tops worn under tailored jackets with petal sleeves.\nGlenda Bailey, editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar magazine, said his follies were tempered by a deep respect for traditional techniques.\n"He's a great craftsman, he's a great tailor, but also he's a great creator. That's what we look forward to every season," she said.\nWestwood, who is fond of quoting cultural references, launched a stinging attack on the trophy wives that make up a large portion of the luxury good industry's clientele.\n"I am expensive. I am subsidized by all the poor people in the world. I dress as though I were a gift to unwrap. I am a rich American heiress looking for a husband," read her show notes.\nModels paraded against a backdrop of childlike crayon doodles in ornate needlepoint lace gowns and checkered taffeta jackets with leg-of-mutton sleeves. A glittering blue jacket was slung over a white T-shirt featuring the purposely misspelled slogan: "I am Expensive."\nWestwood steamed through iconic images of the American female, from a Calamity Jane in a light blue velvet bustier gown and oversized cowboy hat to Roosevelt-era housewives in toile de Jouy dresses cinched at the waist.\nThe show marked the comeback of Sarah Stockbridge, who modeled Westwood's groundbreaking "mini crini" in the 1980s. In her kooky Miss World outfit, the 40-year-old oozed more attitude than all the teenage models in the show combined.\n"I play with dolls, that is what fashion designers do," Westwood said after the show. "But Barbie herself has got a hole in her head."\nThe designer told The Associated Press she was not afraid of driving away customers with her criticism of logo-driven consumerism.\n"I don't actually care, honestly," she said. "I'm saying, buy fashion, don't buy all that stamped-out trash. Buy less, and buy well"