Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

I start each collection thinking how I can refresh my classics.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

I would like to say to people, open your eyes and find beauty where you normally don't expect it.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

When I started in fashion, I had already adopted the sailor-striped sweater as my uniform; that way, I wouldn't have to drive myself crazy trying to figure out what to wear.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

Fashion is not art. Never.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

I have loved corsets since I was small. When I was a child, my grandmother took me to an exhibition, and they had a corset on display. I loved the flesh color, the salmon satin, the lace.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

It is beautiful to be what you are.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

People are so codified - it's sad.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

The great thing about American women is their energy and the way they love to dress. French women don't really dress; they are too conservative, as it's always a question of money. In America, women are powerful and strong, determined. If they want to be an object, they choose to be in control.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

I know what I am able and not able to do. Fashion? OK. Fashion... clothes in theatre, in an opera, in a concert - all that I love. To make a movie myself... no!

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

I take life as it happens. And I give myself a lot of freedom.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

People are fed up with something when it becomes more and more popular.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

Always my collections are made of different influences.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

I've always felt more at home in the UK than in France.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

People think that everyone wears black in France; in fact they all wear grey.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

My eccentricity became direction.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

The shock of the way I mix patterns and fabrics can be disconcerting, but what I am trying to do is provoke new ideas about how pieces can be put together in different ways. I think this is a more modern way to wear clothes that in themselves are fairly classic.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

I don't like dreams or reality. I like when dreams become reality because that is my life.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

If it's too fashiony, it's not interesting to me.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

Doing fashion drawings was the only way I had to express myself when I was a teenager.

Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier

I'm still astounded by some people's reaction to things I consider quite normal.