Jean Paul Gaultier’s 1990s marked a decade of transformation. Already a rising star in the 1980s, he broke into popular culture with Madonna’s Blond Ambition tour in 1990, creating the corseted cone bra that became a defining image of the era. This highly theatrical piece propelled Gaultier far beyond the runway, establishing him as a designer capable of bridging pop, couture, and subculture.
His work in the decade was marked by an embrace of contradiction. He found beauty in the everyday and reworked it into avant garde forms, treating denim, leather, and utilitarian fabrics with the same seriousness as couture. Alongside his use of religious imagery and gender experimentation, Gaultier tapped into club culture, rave aesthetics, and global youth style. The result was a language of dress that blurred high and low.
Across his 1990s collections, Gaultier consistently challenged what fashion could look like. Men appeared in skirts, women in sharply cut tailoring, and both in silhouettes that borrowed from armor, lingerie, and sportswear. Tattoo motifs, mesh layering, exaggerated shoulders, and historical references became recurring signatures, always reimagined with humor and theatricality.
Beyond the runway, he expanded his influence into film and fragrance. In 1997 he designed the costumes for Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, producing over a thousand futuristic looks that defined the movie’s visual identity. That same year he launched his haute couture line, Gaultier Paris. His fragrances Classique (1993) and Le Male (1995) became global bestsellers, their corset and torso bottles as iconic as the garments themselves. These projects secured his place as both a cultural force and a commercial success.
Amid this explosion of creativity, his jewelry reflected many of the same ideas found in his garments. Crosses, Virgin Mary medals, and rosary inspired necklaces appeared in the mid 1990s, drawing on Catholic iconography and reframing it as fashion. This lace rosary cross necklace was a sample from the 90s and did not make it into production.
Measurements:
Clasped 17cm
Unclasped 39cm