Duran Lantink named Jean Paul Gaultier's first successor
Since Jean Paul Gaultier stepped down from his namesake label in 2020, it has been helmed by guest Couturiers from Simone Rocha to Glenn Martens. However, marking a shift for the constantly evolving house, Jean Paul Gaultier has named Duran Lantink its permanent Creative Director to lead both couture and ready-to-wear.
Subsequent to Gaultier taking his final bow at Paris Fashion Week in 2020, the Puig-owned house decided to create a couture line, which invited a new guest couturier each season. Designers were invited to reinterpret Jean Paul Gaultier's design DNA and archival looks, which span over the French designer's 50-year career.
The lineup has since seen the likes of Simone Rocha, Julien Dossena, Haider Ackermann, Olivier Rousteing, Glenn Martens, Sacai’s Chitose, Nicolas Di Felice, and Ludovic de Saint Sernin take the helm of the house. But only temporarily.
Marking a change in its strategy, Duran Lantink is taking over. But this time, for good... or at least the foreseeable future.
"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," Gaultier said in a statement.
The Dutch designer, born in 1988, is renowned for his over-the-top, body-reshaping silhouettes and distorted prints. He founded his womenswear, menswear and genderless label in 2016 but it wasn't until 2018 when pop-star Janelle Monáe wore his 'vagina pants' in her music video that Lantink began to turn heads.
Lantink is the first-ever successor to the label’s French founder, known for his boundary-pushing designs that challenged traditional ideas of gender and beauty. Rising to fame in the 1980s, he became widely recognised for his avant-garde couture, iconic cone bras worn by Madonna, and his ability to blend street style with high fashion.
Madonna in JPG, 1990
Lantink added: "I consider Jean Paul Gaultier as a genius and part of a generation that kicked down doors, so people like us can walk through them freely and be who we are without apology.
"Stepping into the role of Creative Director is a true honour. To me, Gaultier represents the ultimate house of creative spirit and savoir-faire. It’s provocative and continuously pushing boundaries. It’s the brand that brings together different disciplines around fashion to create cultural movements, changing the language of clothes and how we wear them in the streets."
Since 2020, these collaborative collections have become some of the most buzzed-about in fashion, putting Gaultier's name back in the spotlight. While the rotating designer model aligns with the industry's appetite for constant reinvention, it brings its own set of challenges, such as reorienting the atelier for each new collection.
The French label's decision to consider a permanent Creative Director could signal that the rotating model is losing momentum. The brand also requires steady creative direction for its ready-to-wear line, which has been limited to capsule collections since Gaultier’s departure.
Lantink’s first ready-to-wear collection for Jean Paul Gaultier will be for SS26, showing in September 2025. His debut couture collection is set for January 2026.
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