Classique by Jean-Paul Gaultier

To anchor itself in modernism, the sailor stripe man knows perhaps better than anyone how to take inspiration from times past. With the corset, Jean-Paul Gaultier turned fashion inside out. Far from enclosing the bodies of women, he sharpened them up with conical breasts. Reviews were unanimous, and in 1987, Jean-Paul Gaultier took home the fashion equivalent of an Oscar. It was no accident then that in 1993, this enfant terrible of fashion dressed up his first perfume in a leather bustier, inspired by the outfits he created for Madonna and the flask for Shocking by Elsa Schiaparelli. A fragrance made for a feminine audience, the perfume played with the confusion of genders by bearing the name of its creator. Several years later, it naturally took the name of what it had become, a Classique.

Jean-Paul Gaultier imagined Classique by taking inspiration from childhood memories of time he spent with his grandmother, with whom he was very close and who gave him a lasting image of women and femininity. Perfumer Jacques Cavallier was put in charge of composing a sensual perfume, recalling the odors of a boudoir. With rose as the headnote and iris as the heart note, Classique evokes an era that is no longer, made of memories of face powder and silk stockings. A bouquet mixing wooded amber and exotic flowers, it calls out to the female imagination, carnal, viewed in secret from afar. It’s as if you were watching a woman through a keyhole, slipping into her most beautiful of undergarments before joining her lover for the night. He is without a doubt Le Mâle, another of the brand’s mythic perfumes, with whom Classique often becomes engaged in a confusing game of roles and genders in advertisements.

Always seeking to shake up the rules, the designer packs up his glass bustier in a tin can as if it shouldn’t be taken seriously. Every year, in accordance with the brand’s runway shows, Jean-Paul Gaultier gives his perfume a makeover. Most recently, he’s covered the flask’s glass skin with a lace bustier and tattoos for summer.

This year’s edition, Belle en Corset celebrates the perfume’s 20th anniversary. The designer will reinterpret the Spring/Summer 2012 runway dress that paid homage to singer Amy Winehouse. With relief detailing, the glass seems to move in waves across the flask’s body, as if you could just barely graze the breasts. Topped off with a few adornments, Belle en Corset is the perfect way for Classique to celebrate it’s birthday. If she could speak, she would most certainly purr out a rendition of “Happy Birthday to you”…