Brisbane Festival 2024 had the only Australian run of Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Freak Show, which is an impressive coup for the city. The show attracted a diverse crowd of all ages. There were far fewer signature striped tops in the crowd than we expected. Many attendees embraced the opportunity to dress up.
The show opens with a surgery scene played on the screens that line the back of the stage. The nurses and surgeons transform before our eyes into tailors and sewers. The patient? Jean Paul Gaultier’s first model – his teddy bear. The operation? Fitting it with the iconic pointy bra that Madonna later made famous. We hear his grandmother say « Jean Paul qu’est-ce que tu as fait à ton nounours ? » (Jean Paul, what have you done to your teddy bear?) This leads to the first appearance of the cast dressed as teddy bears with tinselled, sequined pants and the signature pointy bra.
Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Freak Show is not just a celebration of fashion, it’s a triple threat with music and dance also in the mix. Music wise, you can expect a fantastic familiar soundtrack, some supplemented by live vocals from Aliashka. Le Freak C’est Chic is the theme song of sorts for the show making appearances at the beginning and the end. In between, you’ll hear a mixture of English language and French language songs such as Light My Fire, Vogue, I Want Your Love Plastic Bertrand’s Ça Plane Pour Moi, and Josephine Baker’s J’ai Deux Amours.
Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Freak Show has 19 on-stage cast members including Australian Cooper Terry and Brisbane based New Zealander Katie Baring-Gould. When casting, there is a strong focus on dance capabilities and this is shown in the fluid performances of the choreographed dance and movements throughout the show. In addition to the on-stage cast members, various familiar faces and voices play cameo roles via video, including Catherine Deneuve who plays the part of directrice couture and commentates the looks we see in that part. Another French actress that French and Francophiles may recognise is Line Renaud, who you may best know from the hit film Welcome to the Sticks, or more recently Driving Madeleine.
Perhaps one of the most impressive aspects of Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Freak Show is that all of the outfits worn throughout it are all pieces from Jean Paul Gaultier’s archive. To put the pieces on show in a temperature-controlled room as part of an exhibition is one thing but to have them worn and danced in energetically is something else altogether.
Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Freak Show is split into four parts separated by one interval. The early scenes of the show traces Jean Paul’s early beginnings from using his teddy bear as his mannequin and his grandmother’s corsets for inspiration as a child to his entry into the fashion world and him meeting Francis, the partner who supported and encouraged him to go out on his own. In the first half we get to enjoy his first fashion show, and it is done so well that we truly feel like we are watching the real thing.
In the second half, we see Francis’ battle and ultimate loss to AIDS in 1990, after being in a 15-year relationship with Jean Paul. Gaultier doesn’t shy away from Francis’ illness and death in the show. We mourn it with him. However, the serious mood doesn’t stay sombre for any longer than it needs to and moves into a fun vogue battle, and his male couture show. The show doesn’t hide the scandals – some of the magazine covers criticising him for his designs or his use of trans, overweight, or other “non-traditional” models splashed on the screen for us to see. There is an amusing, albeit slightly disturbing, parody of the plastic surgery culture before ultimately pushing the message that everybody is beautiful.
The Fashion Police segment is a fun interlude in the show where we see a very conservatively dressed woman at first critiquing the grotesqueness of Jean Paul Gaultier’s first show only to later be claiming she’s been a huge fan from the beginning. She mocks the audience for thinking we are all there to get cast as models in the latest show. That said, wannabe models also have their chance to strut their stuff on the catwalk with a stunning audience member (we thought she was playing Naomi Campbell) volunteering and being chosen to join the cast for the Freaks Runway.
Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Freak Show is a very sexy show, not just for the fashion but also some of the choreography. A sensual scene with a mixture of dance choreography and circus involves a man and two women performing on, in and around a giant wheel getting up close and personal. You don’t have to be a fashionista to appreciate Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show. The storytelling, choreography, soundtrack and party atmosphere are all drawcards. This show has it all.
We are so thrilled that we got the chance to see Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Freak Show and strongly encourage you to see it if you too have the opportunity. That Brisbane Festival managed to secure this as an Australian exclusive is quite a coup and will surely elevate Brisbane among the culture capitals of Australia.
5 CROISSANTS
Matilda Marseillaise was a guest of Brisbane Festival
You may wish to read our interview with Fanny Coindet, Associate Director of Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show here
