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Fashion Review

Gaultier Stretches His Wings

PARIS — So finally — finally! — the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition that started its wild and wacky life in 2011 in Montreal is coming to Paris.

The digital wonders of talking models, the pointed cone bras as worn by Madonna and the designer’s finest haute couture will appear at the Grand Palais starting in April 2015, revealing the Gaultier “Planet Mode” from his beginnings in the 1970s.

The exhibition has already been shown in museums in cities including Dallas, London, Madrid and San Francisco.

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Dita Von Teese at John Paul Gaultier, summer 2014 couture, in Paris.Credit...Guillaume Roujas/Nowfashion.com

Now that the designer has become a French national treasure, was the couture show he sent out in Paris on Wednesday a matter of resting on his laurels? No way! It was more a stretching of his wings.

The collection was based on a butterfly, a good metaphor for creativity in constant metamorphosis. And this play on fluttering wings and iridescent colors was jaw-dropping in its casual brilliance.

Catherine Deneuve gasped as the burlesque star Dita Von Teese sashayed down the runway in a dress that appeared to be the melding of two butterflies, created entirely from translucent blue wings. Other clothes carried the name “Cocoon” (an alpaca suit with winged sleeves) or “Cardinale” (a two-color shirt with a cascade of frills).

Yet the collection opened with pure Parisian chic: black tailoring, impeccably cut and without oh la la! elements.

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Elie Saab, summer 2014 couture, in Paris.Credit...Gio Staiano/Nowfashion.com

Although a themed show is a rare and mostly rejected idea in haute couture today, Mr. Gaultier’s vaudeville spirit brought a sense of fun and displayed extraordinary techniques — the butterfly might be a white shirt with shoulder “wings” or a hair decoration dressed with feathers.

In all, the designer found a way of emphasizing his fashion codes while making the show feel fresh, fun and often quite beautiful.

Elie Saab found an inspiration for his collection, “The Promise of Spring.”

The most powerful influence was the Pre-Raphaelite painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema, whose luscious blooms in luminous colors and languorous fin de siècle ladies were interpreted by the designer on the runway.

Long, fluid chiffon dresses — whose colors moved from black bodices to purple skirts and ended in bleached-out white hems — were striking. So was the hydrangea blue gown with appliquéd flowers and, most dramatic of all, floral ball gowns with a mélange of lace and embroidery.

Despite all this fine handwork, Mr. Saab does not try to extend his ideas or aesthetic beyond evening gowns. But this season’s were exceptional.

A version of this article appears in print on   in The New York Times International Edition. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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