Jean Paul Gaultier's Most Iconic Moments: From Madonna's Cone Bra To All Things Breton

First realised around 1983, recreated for Madonna's Blonde Ambition tour in the 1990s and continually reimagined throughout his career, Gaultier's cone bra is emblematic of much of his design ethos: controversial, gender-inquisitive and humorous.

Jean Paul Gaultier AW84

Iman modelling the cone bra circa 1990.

Madonna performs in one of Gaultier's designs during her Blonde Ambition tour in 1990.

Gaultier experimented with gender roles through his clothes like no other, Balch told us. Epitomised in Gaultier's SS93 runway show, which had models sporting breast-covering, ultra-high-waited suit trousers.

Jean Paul Gaultier SS93

Boy George models for Jean Paul Gaultier SS93

Jean Paul Gaultier SS04.

Worn recently by Kim Kardashian and Bella Hadid, Gaultier' has returned to his tattoo skins repeatedly across the brand's history.

Tattoo skins, like many of Gaultier's designs, both pushed the boundaries of social norms and questioned what is classed as 'fashion' ('Clothes are our chosen skin,' Orsola De Castro, co-founder of Fashion Revolution, says.)

Alongside Gaultier's underwear-as-outerwear, tattoo skins are some of his most referenced works, having popped up on the runways of Commes Des Garçons, Vetements and Dior.

Jean Paul Gaultier circa 1994.

Jean Paul Gaultier AW97.

Christian Dior Haute Couture SS19.

Worn by the designer himself, and referenced in his designs, the Breton stripe is synonymous with the Gaultier brand. Whilst he himself noted that the stripe is tied to his personal and French history, others have noted that stripes have, 'historically [been] worn as a political statement, a rejection of privilege and status and as a show of support for the working man and his pure ideals.'

'The Breton stripe T-shirt is a childhood memory for me,' Jean Paul Gaultier told The Financial Times of his love of Breton stripes in 2011. 'My grandmother used to dress me in Breton tops, so when I think of navy stripes I feel a nostalgia for that era when I was growing up.'

Jean Paul Gaultier SS01.

Jean Paul Gaultier AW97.

Jean Paul Gaultier SS00.

Nudity and eroticism in his shows have ruffled a fair few feathers, but that was probably exactly the reaction he courted.

John Paul Gaultier Fashion Show To Benefit AmFar with Madonna 1992.

Naomi Campbell during Jean-Paul Gaultier's Couture show 2002.

Carla Bruni during Jean-Paul Gaultier's Couture show 2002.

The renegade designer threw off the kid gloves and delved wholly into controversy.

Gaultier has long toyed with Christian iconography, and even took a 'Chic Rabbi' collection to the runway in the early nineties.

His interrogation of Judaism and Christianity have both been met with criticism, particularly the AW93 Jewish-inspired show that, '[the] Hasidic community considered [a] mockery while others were more disturbed by the fact that women walked down the runway in the traditionally male clothing.'

Jean Paul Gaultier Couture SS07.

Jean Paul Gaultier SS98.

Jean Paul Gaultier and Madonna attend the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2018.