Another day, another creative director making their first outing at a major fashion house. So far this season – including Demna’s Gucci film premiere – we’ve seen ten designers deliver their big debuts, with the eleventh and largest coming tomorrow with Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel. But last night, (Oct 5), it was the turn of Dutch designer Duran Lantink, who was appointed creative director of Jean Paul Gaultier earlier this year.

The April announcement came as somewhat of a surprise to the industry. Since 2020, Gaultier has operated on a rotating-designer format, collaborating with the likes of Glenn Martens, Simone Rocha, Haider Ackermann and Ludovic de Saint Sernin, plus the brand hasn’t shown during ready-to-wear since 2014. Now, after more than a decade, JPG ready-to-wear has returned, and with it, a new designer just as mischievous as the brand’s French founder. 

While Lantink launched his namesake brand in 2016 after graduating from Amsterdam's Gerrit Rietveld Academie, the Dutch designer only began to show on the official Paris Fashion Week calendar in March 2023. In comparison to the other debuts this season, featuring well-seasoned designers like Pierpaolo Piccioli, Demna and Blazy, Lantink’s name is still relatively new. 

It made a refreshing change to the news cycle that a lesser-known designer would be taking the helm of a heritage brand. Yet, it made complete sense – during the 80s, Gaultier was nicknamed ‘l’enfant terrible’ of fashion, which is exactly what Lantink is to the industry in 2025 – a designer unafraid of being provocative and testing limits. So, with that in mind, here’s everything you missed from his SS26 debut.

GAULTIER HIMSELF SAT FRONT ROW

Jean Paul Gaultier himself could never miss a Jean Paul Gaultier show. He’s been present at all of the rotating designers’ shows, and Lantink’s debut as creative director was no exception. Post show, the pair embraced as the Dutch designer took his final bow, meanwhile backstage, Gaultier tearfully expressed how proud he was. “I’m so happy you’re happy,” Lantink responded. 

WHO NEEDS WINDOWS ANYWAY?

Some designers choose to show their collections under the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower, others opt for the Grand Palais, the opera house, the Tuileries, the Pompidou or the Louvre. Not Duran Lantink. For his Gaultier debut, the designer opted for a dingy, low-lit industrial basement, ironically, metres from the Eiffel Tower (though you wouldn’t have known). 

WE GOT THE BREAST OF BOTH WORLDS

As well as a rebellious spirit, Gaultier and Lantink both share a common interest in women’s breasts. In March this year, the Dutch designer caused uproar when he sent a pair of jiggly silicone breasts down the runway, worn by a male model. “Disappointed to see mockery of the female body by a young male designer that I actually loved and respected,” was the response of fellow designer Dilara Fındıkoğlu, a sentiment shared by many across the industry. 

30-odd years earlier, in September 1992, Madonna walked the Jean Paul Gaultier runway with her breasts fully bare in front of a crowd of 6,000 people. And that wasn’t the first time a pair of Gaultier boobs got the world talking. The cone bra has become arguably the most recognisable item in the JPG archive – popularised by Madonna during her 1990 Blond Ambition tour, though originally designed for Gaultier’s childhood teddy bear. 

AND A GREATEST HITS TOUR

For his SS26 debut, Lantink truly took us on a tour of Gaultier’s greatest hits, starting with his reinterpretation of the cone bra: the opening look was a carrot-orange strapless jumpsuit, featuring two protruding conical breasts. 

After the cone bras came the sailor references, though Lantink had given the nautical stripes his own spin by turning them vertically, rather than the classic horizontal print. He took Gaultier’s skintight optical illusions to new extremes, sending models out in a kind of birthday suit – a very hairy naked-look onesie destined to make onlookers do a double take (similar to Lantink’s namesake AW25 collection). 

At least one look was a direct reference to Gaultier’s costumes for the 1997 sci-fi film The Fifth Element, in which Milla Jovovich plays the flame-haired Leeloo, a character as synonymous with orange and white as Mr Blobby is with pink and yellow. Elsewhere, there was a reference to the infamous 1994 collection, Les Tatouages, described by the New York Times as an “homage to punk fashion” and listed by Vogue as one of the top 25 unforgettable shows of the 90s. No wonder Lantink wanted to resurface it. 

With a slew of chaps, leather mankinis, pubic-bone-grazing waistlines and even more breasts, the Dutch designer didn’t seem at all deterred by last season’s controversy, if anything, it only seemed to spur him on. With his collection titled Junior, that’s exactly what Lantink seems to be: Jean Paul Gaultier Jr.

Scroll through the gallery above for backstage images from the show