Is AI making couture freaky?
Alongside the customary fairy-tale gowns requiring thousands of hours of handiwork, the runways of Paris this week have also been filled with the kind of surreal, uncanny creations more readily associated with David Szauder’s video art.
Some of the outfits in Duran Lantink’s first haute couture collection for Jean Paul Gaultier might well be mistaken for AI hallucinations: chopped up, projected out the front and sides, or with tubular structures that appeared to grow from the body.
It turns out the designer’s inspiration was actually 40 years old: sitting on Lantink’s desk was a book featuring Gaultier’s costume designs for choreographer Régine Chopinot, including the graphic, topiary-like silhouettes he created for her 1985 dance piece “Le Défilé.”
“He was very modern for his time,” Lantink said during a preview. “At the end of the day, we’re in 2026 now. I try to push myself in order to see what feels modern for me, what feels exciting to me, and how we can push it to another level.”
Winner of the Karl Lagerfeld Award at the 2024 LVMH Prize, Lantink said he was less interested in transforming the body than in developing new garment shapes. “Couture is so much about craftsmanship and handwork, but it’s also fun to play with technology and see how we can combine that, and how we can find a sweet spot in order to make it feel romantic,” he explained.
A stiff bell-shaped dress, reminiscent of Demna’s massive Balenciaga ballgowns, was 3D printed, hand-flocked and applied with lace motifs. A tubular column gown, meanwhile, was layered in flamingo pink feathers.
Lantink tapped the duo of Whitaker & Malem, known for their work with the artist Allen Jones, to create a sci-fi burgundy molded leather bustier. He referenced the viral nude tops he showed under his own label with a wavy torso worn by Leon Dame, whose moles were hand-painted on the latex surface.
But the main reference for the collection was Marie Antoinette, who perfected the art of taking up space with voluminous gowns and oversized feathered hats. Lantink, who recently visited the Palace of Versailles for the first time, worked that idea into tulle gowns best described as Op Art sculptures.
Velvet knickerbockers, jewel-toned satin mules and long black velvet hair ribbons lent a historic air to his sharply tailored jackets — including one spliced together from three upcycled Levi’s denim jackets — that suggested a more practical way of commanding attention.
A newcomer to couture, Lantink said he was still getting to know both the people in his atelier and the house’s clients. Whether that crew of happy extroverts adopts his more extreme propositions remains to be seen, but Lantink sounded confident: “They’re very powerful women, and they are not afraid.”
