Review: JEAN PAUL GAULTIER FASHION FREAK SHOW, Camden Roundhouse

A few years ago, the Victoria and Albert Museum hosted a magnificent exhibition dedicated to Christian Dior, the high priest of haute couture. All the technique, the artistry, the reverence was dutifully rendered, even John Galliano's brief tenure as Head Designer could not break the rigour of the work foundered on a cast iron attitude to a culture that is as Parisian as a stroll through the Jardin des Tuileries.

This show is not like that. It comes from another vision of how life can be, should be, lived. Its Paris is energetic, transgressive, sexual - it's more a stroll down the Rue St Denis to the pissoir en route to a dive bar and on to a club. And why not?

We open on Jean Paul's Teddy Bear, his repository of dreams, the first beneficiary of the iconic conic bra. We see (in Justin Nardella's and Renaud Rubiano's astonishing video work) the schoolboy who knew his talent could charm its way out of any kind of trouble - and so the boy, and then the man, could embrace it whenever he so chose.

Soon he's working with Pierre Cardin - like Pablo Picasso developing every traditional skill in painting in order to explode into something new, Jean Paul learned what was needed to re-invent fashion. In a brilliantly realised scene, his first individual show (in 1976) is recreated, with the chaos backstage visible to us, the thrills of a new generation flexing its creative muscles in the air (as it was then in London too, teetering on the edge of Punk).

Soon, there's Madonna and the superstardom, but there's AIDS, death and heartbreak too and a recognition that fun could raise funds for medical research. There's the fickle reaction of the fashion mavens (Anna Wintour and Karl Lagerfeld get an affectionate skewering) but Jean Paul comes out on top. There's the androgyny, the cross-dressing and the other kind of TV, with his longstanding friend (appearing on video) Antoine de Caunes. And there's an appeal to embrace the freaks, the people that don't look 'right', don't think 'right', don't act 'right' - and a quite forceful condemnation of cosmetic surgery. As Madonna implored, pointy bra aimed at the camera, 'Express Yourself' - with both words equally important.

With French A-list guest stars appearing on the screens (Rossy de Palma and Catherine Deneuve amongst others) and a setlist put together by Nile Rogers (the French can do many things, but pop music isn't one of them), the show is a spectacle worthy of the Folies Bergère (indeed, a sensational montage of posters pays due respect to that Parisian venue). The energy only dips when the dancers and excellent singer, Haylen, retire for the many costume changes and the fillers sap just a little from director, Tonie Marshall's, pounding pace.

The room is perhaps a little too cavernous to allow for the intimacy and connections the show requires, but that is a minor quibble. We don't often get Vegas style extraganzas in London, still less one with its roots in European cabaret and French sensibility, but this show makes a good case for a few more. Not that you'd ever find another Jean Paul Gaultier...

Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Freak Show is at the Camden Roundhouse until 28 August

Photo Credit: Mark Senior