The installation features a giant tiered gâteau populated by the talking mannequins that have travelled the globe for six years for the exhibition The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier, From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk.

Admiring the Jean Paul Gaultier Love is Love wedding installation.

The wedding theme is a fitting finale. Gaultier has said that this has been his biggest fashion show ever.

The garments are breathtaking in their beauty, confection and audacity. One beaded gown, from the Samurai collection, took 480 hours to make. Another, the Merry Widow from the Punk CanCan collection of 2011, is a riot of silk tulle. And, of course, there are the pieces that break tradition: Aphrodite’s Child, with baby in tow, the Tribute to Africa mask bodice masterpiece, and the talking Gaultier, greeting guests in his mariner T and suit of white skirt and blazer.

For museum director and chief curator Nathalie Bondil, the purpose of the exhibition is not just to show nice dresses, obviously. The museum exhibition gives the public access to haute couture: “It’s the duty of the museum to give access to works of art,’’ she said. “In fact, it is much easier to see a Monet, a Van Gogh or Gauguin painting. These dresses, which are marvels, were made for several minutes on a catwalk.”

Thierry Maxim Loriot.

And there is the inclusive, humanist message of Gaultier, echoed through the six years of the mother exhibition, by both Bondil and curator Thierry Maxime Loriot.

Indeed, the name Love is Love is a reference to Barack Obama’s declaration in 2015 on the legalization of gay marriage in the U.S.

The white wedding finale to the fashion show was introduced in 1949 by Christian Dior, Loriot said. That was 109 years after Queen Victoria sparked the white tradition by wearing a white lace gown to wed Prince Albert. Previously, brides simply wore their best dress. Gaultier, always provocative, has also challenged wedding dress norms.

In 1990, a 23-metre train was part of the catwalk decor and unrolled at the finale. In 2004, Gaultier presented the Gay Wedding collection, with muse Tanel Bedrossiantz walking the runway with a husband. And in 2015, he addressed the issue of same-sex marriage in France with 61 Ways to Say Yes. One model: the (Bi)Polar Bride.

The installation, in the Contemporary Art Square of the museum, is a “cocoon” of  white elastic fabric, conceived by Dutch designer Jurgen Bey. Bey explains that things have to fit together: “If you look at your body, it’s really illogical. But it’s the skin that makes it into one thing.”

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier has had an extraordinary run: 12 stops on four continents, 14 tons of material, and more than 2 million visitors over six years.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York opened Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty a few weeks before the Montreal Gaultier exhibition, in 2011. In parallel, the two fashion shows “marked a turning point in the history of fashion exhibitions,’’ Bondil said.

Loriot, whose start in fashion was as a model, has since curated shows on Viktor & Rolf and photographer Peter Lindbergh. Asked to what he attributes the astonishing success of the Gaultier exhibition, Loriot cited the exciting live presentation of the models as one factor. The mannequins, by Quebec company JoliCoeur International, were animated by Denis Marleau and Stéphanie Jasmin of UBU.  “People enjoy an exhibition that doesn’t look like a funeral exhibition or a window of Holt Renfrew or Barneys.”

He also went behind the scenes, his particular interest, researching photography and videos to accompany the garments.

But the Gaultier road show might not be over quite yet: there have been requests from museums to mount Love is Love. No word yet on whether Gaultier and the museum will agree to a new tour, Bondil and Loriot said.

And yes, there is another fashion exhibition in the works for the MMFA, Bondil and Loriot acknowledged. Details to come.

Love is Love: Wedding Bliss for All à la Jean Paul Gaultier is on until Oct. 9.

The post Happily ever after: Love is Love closes Jean Paul Gaultier world tour appeared first on Eva Friede.

The respected retailer with signature red hair said she was fed up with retail, citing a host of factors from the economy to the state of fashion design.

For 32 years, Balla’s boutique on tony Sherbrooke St. W. in the heart of the Golden Square Mile served as a beacon of avant-garde fashion in Montreal, bringing rarefied fashion from the likes of Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto, Rick Owens, Ann Demeulemeester and many more to the city.

But Balla never liked the term avant-garde: she instead always spoke of the fashion of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

I always believed not in the fashion of today,  but fashion that you could wear yesterday, today and tomorrow.”

Maria Balla with a model wearing Yohji Yamamoto as the retailer marked 20 years in business, in 2003.

From the Les Créateurs web site, above, three looks by Junya Watanabe. Below, the shop has seen a fair share of top collections, including those from Comme des Garçons, Jean Paul Gaultier and Dries Van Noten.

Balla says she can’t abide commercial designers, those who introduce a particular colour, for instance, and the next season you know it’s last year’s garment.

She names Rick Owens, Ann Demeulemeester and Haider Ackermann as designers whose fashions stand up season after season.

She brought to Montreal the Belgians, with their deconstruction, and the Japanese, with architectural designs.

“They’re cerebral designers, and sometimes customers find it difficult to wear and even to understand. It needs a lot of confidence.

“What I learned over all these years, is that women still do not have enough confidence.”

But Balla decided it was time to say goodbye to good things, she told me.

“I’m finished with retailing, and that’s about it.

“The face of Montreal is changing. It’s not what it used to be,” Balla said, adding Montreal’s economy was a problem.

Of course, the fashion world is in turmoil everywhere. The internet revolution, with social media, online sales, instant communication and the onslaught of fast fashion knockoffs are turning retail on its heel. And then there is the prevailing trend to athleisure dressing.

There were many factors at play in her decision, Balla said.

She calls fashion stagnant at the moment, with designers concerned only with selling.

“The fidelity of clients is not the same. Older clients have other priorities. Youngers ones do not dress. They think a handbag will do.”

Asked about her best memories of Les Créateurs, Balla was clear: “When a client came in and was happy – comments and appreciation. Those are the rewarding parts.”

Balla is busy closing down the business at the moment. “I’ll put my thinking cap on (about) what’s next.”

The post Maria Balla’s Les Créateurs: an appreciation appeared first on Eva Friede.