Exclusive: Jean Paul Gaultier Names Duran Lantink Creative Director

PARIS — Jean Paul Gaultier has tapped Duran Lantink to be its creative director, the Puig-owned brand confirmed Tuesday.

The move makes the Dutch designer — whose puffy, body-reshaping silhouettes and distorted prints have made him a breakout fashion star — the first-ever successor to the label’s namesake founder, who became famous in the 1980s for blending pop theatricality and gender-fluid, inclusive storytelling with rigorous couture technique.

Lantink will debut his vision for Jean Paul Gaultier during September’s Paris Fashion Week, staging the brand’s first ready-to-wear show in over a decade. His haute couture debut is slated for January 2026.

“I see in him the energy, audacity and playful spirit through fashion that I had at the beginning of my own journey: the new enfant terrible of fashion,” said Mr Gaultier, who gave his blessing to the appointment.

“Duran isn’t referencing Gaultier exactly, but you can find his values there in the way he is rethinking volumes, rethinking the body,” said managing director Antoine Gagey.

The brand shuttered its ready-to-wear line in 2014, as top-end heritage brands and cut-rate fast-fashion groups alike pinched designer labels that had once been aspirational staples on the floors of department stores and multi-brand boutiques. For the last decade, Gaultier has shown only haute couture, which remained a laboratory for its founder’s campy, deftly constructed designs, while casting a halo over its significant fragrance business.

Since 2020, when Mr Gaultier stepped down, the brand has used couture as a platform for rotating collaborations, giving designers including Glenn Martens, Haider Ackermann, Nicolas di Felice and Simone Rocha an unprecedented opportunity to try their hand at the artisanal form.

The brand also revived its ready-to-wear offering with a series of capsule collections: collaborations with the likes of Lotta Volkova and Shayne Oliver as well as studio-designed drops informed by the brand’s archive. And despite the somewhat scattershot strategy, the business has steadily rebuilt a roster of around 100 stockists in addition to selling its collections directly online.

“There’s a real demand for Jean Paul Gaultier, young people in particular are in step with its values,” Gagey said. But taking its fashion business to the next level will require a more stable approach. “We’re at a stage where we need more consistency across categories and seasons,” he added.

Since reengaging with Gaultier, stockists have gravitated towards its entry-level luxuries like T-shirts and jersey dresses. Working with a single creative director will allow the brand to expand its credibility to new categories and stretch its propositions upmarket.

“This brand is more elevated than people remember, with a heritage that is really rigorous and precise. We have a certain legitimacy in design, in luxury to reassert — not to mention the cultural credibility that was always a part of the brand’s story,” Gagey said.

Lantink, aged 38, studied at the Gerritt Gerrit Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam before building his profile in the industry through celebrity projects like designing a pair of viral “vagina” trousers for Janelle Monae in 2018. His 2021 debut runway show, which was staged for an audience of buzzing drones during coronavirus lockdowns, garnered critical praise for its innovative use of upcycled materials and transformation of archival garments and prints.

By the time he joined the Paris ready-to-wear calendar in October 2023, he had already attracted a robust circle of support. Boosters included stylist Jodie Barnes, “Fantastic Man” editors Jop van Bennekom and Gert Jonkers and publicist Lucien Pagès, who cajoled editors to his outing on the ninth day of Paris shows.

What they saw was compelling. Sportswear classics were reinterpreted in improbable, inflated proportions. There was humour (not just social-media-baiting gags), unconventional sex appeal and a sense of mystery.

Lantink’s appointment at Gaultier follows big wins at the 2025 Woolmark Prize (announced in Milan earlier this month) and LVMH’s 2024 Karl Lagerfeld prize.

“When I look at Monsieur Gaultier’s collections, it feels like he was always inspired by what was happening around him, culturally, socially and politically,” the designer said. “I feel a strong connection to that approach and spirit.

But Lantink’s consecration as creative director of a major Paris house will come as bittersweet news to some, as the designer plans to suspend his namesake line to focus on his new opportunity.

“Especially since I’m not only working on the ready-to-wear, but also the couture, it’s a big responsibility that I take very seriously. I have so much respect for Mr. Gaultier and his couture legacy, and I want to take the time to truly focus on the savoir-faire of the incredibly talented people in the atelier,” he explained.

“Duran is something that won’t disappear,” he continued. “I’m still very eager to explore its possibilities — when the time feels right, and when I feel ready and confident that I can take on multiple things without compromising the quality.”

Gaultier owner Puig — the Barcelona-based group known for its prowess selling fragrances — has steadily worked to rebalance its portfolio in recent years, shedding licenses in favour of investing in brands it owns outright like Jean Paul Gaultier, Paco Rabanne, Charlotte Tilbury and Nina Ricci. While the scale of its fashion businesses still pales in comparison to global scents like Rabanne’s “1 Million” or Gaultier’s “Le Male,” the company has sought to ramp up its footprint in apparel, notably by acquiring Dries Van Noten in 2018. After a long period of churning through designers, it has also built a more stable fashion platform at Rabanne, where Julien Dossena has been creative director since 2014.

“Puig has a real strategy and ambition in fashion,” Gagey said.

While luxury brands are currently facing headwinds worldwide, some labels that dramatically scaled back distribution in recent years are managing to bounce back with a new strategy. LVMH’s Pucci, for one, says it’s experiencing “strong growth” under designer Camille Miceli, who was brought in to relaunch the brand after it ditched many of its oversized boutiques in urban locations during the pandemic. L’Oréal’s Mugler, by contrast, parted ways with its designer of seven years Casey Cadwallader after sales and buzz tumbled from a post-pandemic peak.

After onboarding Lantink, Gaultier’s immediate priority will be to grow sales through its current channels (the brand’s online flagship as well as leading stockists like Mytheresa, Saks and Nordstroms) as well as working more closely with influential stores like Dover Street Market (Gagey describes the Comme des Garçons-owned boutique as “re-positionnant.”)

If all goes well, a return to retail could be in the cards in the medium term. “It’s time to dream bigger,” Gagey said.