By my reckoning, of all the names that have guest-designed Jean Paul Gaultier collections since the project started mid-pandemic, Nicolas Di Felice is the greenest. In fact, his debut at Courrèges happened the same year that this Gaultier collaborations concept got off the ground—2021. But if Di Felice has less runway experience than predecessors like Sacai’s Chitose Abe or Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing, it hardly showed at tonight’s presentation.
It was hotter than Hades in JPG’s headquarters, and it wasn’t just that the air conditioning went out or that the skylights had turned the runway into a veritable greenhouse. Since arriving at Courrèges, Di Felice has yanked it out of its heritage label slumber, transforming it into a go-to label for young people looking for sexy club wear and cool vinyl separates that nod at its Space Age origins without dwelling upon them. Di Felice was a boy in Belgium when Madonna first wore Gaultier’s cone bra, but the French designer made a strong impression: “For me and for so many queer, different people from the countryside—from everywhere in the world—he represented Paris, a city where everything is possible.
He was really the first one to celebrate different people. Everybody remembers this about him and it’s a good thing, because he actually did it.” The collection told a story about a Paris arriviste, who wears covered up clothes: jackets and dresses with long sleeves, long skirts, and necklines that climb up t.
