Jean Paul Gaultier Names Duran Lantink as His First Successor

Duran Lantink becomes Jean Paul Gaultier’s first-ever creative director, ushering in a new era after years of guest-designed couture seasons.

By Sean Castelo III April 16, 2025

Jean Paul Gaultier has finally passed the conical torch. After years of high-profile flings with guest designers, the house has found the one—Dutch designer Duran Lantink, a rule-breaker known for slicing up designer deadstock and patching together couture chaos with a wink and a middle finger. The enfant terrible baton has officially been handed down—and it’s sharpened, shoulder-padded, and ready to puncture fashion’s comfort zone.

Lantink, whose eponymous label has earned a cult following for its Frankenstein approach to fashion—body-morphing silhouettes, surreal tailoring, and distorted proportions—isn’t here to whisper homage. He’s here to warp it, stretch it, and put it through a high-concept spin cycle. His appointment marks a historic moment for the house: he’s the first official successor to Jean Paul Gaultier himself since the designer’s retirement in 2020.

For the past few years, the Gaultier couture house has operated more like an open relationship, inviting guest designers (Glenn Martens, Haider Ackermann, Simone Rocha, and most recently, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, among others) to riff on JPG’s legacy for one season at a time. Each guest brought their own flavor, but there was always a lingering question: who would be the one to take this ship and sail it forward—for real?

Lantink is a designer whose work is akin to fashion shock therapy. He’s turned heads with chimeric creations spliced from the ghosts of past seasons—cut-up Gucci mashed with thrifted Prada, all reimagined into sharp, gender-fluid silhouettes. He’s dressed Janelle Monáe in “vagina pants”. You can describe his method as “sustainable surgery”.

IMG_9291 - MEGA — ^{Janelle monÁe and tessa thompson in “pyke” music video}

He doesn’t do normal, and neither did Gaultier. Known for lacing theatricality with razor-sharp technique, Gaultier’s legacy includes sailor stripes, cone bras, and a wild, joyful irreverence for gender. He made room on the runway for bodies of all kinds before the rest of fashion caught up. Lantink doesn’t follow rules either; he rips them up and reassembles them into something smarter, sexier, and stranger.

IMG_9294 - MEGA — ^{Jean paul gaultier fragrance campaign}

Gaultier himself seems thrilled. “I see in him the energy, audacity, and playful spirit through fashion that I had at the beginning of my own journey,” he said, dubbing Lantink “the new enfant terrible of fashion.”

Lantink will stage Jean Paul Gaultier’s first ready-to-wear show in over a decade this September 2025 at Paris Fashion Week, with his haute couture debut to follow in January 2026. No pressure—just resuscitating one of fashion’s most beloved houses with an audience of die-hard JPG disciples watching.

IMG_9293 - MEGA — ^{Duran lantik is the first creative director to helm Jean Paul Gaultier after the founding designer’s retirement in 2020}

If anyone can chop and stitch Gaultier’s legacy into something future-forward, perverse, and poetic, it can possibly be Lantink. The house that made Madonna’s breasts legendary is about to get a body reshuffle.

For more information, visit the Jean Paul Gaultier website

Photos: JEAN PAUL GAULTIER and DURAN LANTIK (via Instagram); JANELLE MONAE (via YouTube screengrab)