Beauty at Jean Paul Gaultier's SS17 Couture Show

Wylde takes a look at the juxtaposing beauty looks of Gaultier's 80s inspired SS17 couture show.

Report by Sarah Roberts

Jean Paul Gaultier is the go-to designer for flamboyance and exuberance, pairing eccentricity with high fashion in just the right way. Cue his show-stopping SS17 couture show, with make-up designed by Wylde’s genius Beauty Director, Terry Barber.

Gaultier always manages to keep things fun and upbeat, harking back to the heyday, supermodel era of the Eighties and early Nineties. His SS17 couture show channeled the era with Boy George-esque headscarves, Eighties-heavy tunes, and a vibrant makeup palette. It also featured Coco Rocha, Gaultier’s couture bride, atop a swing, flying above quasi cornfields before leaping into a wheelbarrow.

Gaultier’s beauty brief for the show was rooted in our sense of place, as he played with the juxtaposition of a colour-heavy urban makeup palette and a healthy, flushed rural look. Think Working Girl meets Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

The show began with models parading down the runway donning striking ‘city slicker’ makeup and big-shouldered, small-waisted suited silhouettes. Terry Barber's makeup looks used graphic blocks of bright 80s primary-coloured eyeshadows and bold lacquered red lips, or as Gaultier refers to them, ‘ketchup lips’. As the show developed, the girls moved out of the city, and became softer and more countrified, playing with two polar worlds of femininity.