What this is:
Jean Paul Gaultier unveils its Pre-Fall 2025 ad campaign, and this season feels distinctly transitional. While the fashion world eagerly awaits the first collection from new permanent creative director Duran Lantink, the in-house design team takes the spotlight—reasserting core codes of the house with a modern spirit. The campaign itself stars global phenomenon Jennie (of BLACKPINK fame), who steps into a series of sensual, sculptural looks inspired by the four classical elements: water, fire, earth, and air. Under Max Siedentopf’s creative direction and the lens of photographer Cesar Decharme, the visuals move fluidly between sharp spotlight and the rawness of backstage, casting Jennie as both the subject and the spectacle in Gaultier’s theatrical universe.
Our take:
What stands out most in this campaign is its sophisticated sense of in-betweenness—a poised waiting room between legacy and reinvention. The collection itself mines Gaultier’s signatures: body-hugging corsetry, clever trompe-l’œil illusions, and tailoring with a twist of sensual bravado. But rather than simply rehashing the past, the campaign is staged with a wink—a play between high-gloss drama and the candid energy of rehearsal. Jennie, a muse who is as comfortable in couture as she is in streetwear, embodies this duality brilliantly. Her star power not only widens Gaultier’s global reach, but her chameleonic style makes her the ideal conduit for exploring the brand’s codes anew.
The real magic is atmospheric. Siedentopf’s direction leans into performance art, with lighting and staging that blur the lines between model and performer, studio and stage. We’re invited to see fashion as an act—where self-presentation, vulnerability, and bravura are all on display. It’s a campaign that isn’t content to rest on nostalgia; instead, it propels the house into a contemporary arena, balancing control with surrender, polish with backstage authenticity.
Jennie herself notes, “Every look had its own energy—fluid, fiery, grounded or light—and I loved expressing all those sides of myself through Gaultier’s incredible design.” This sense of expressive freedom is the campaign’s greatest triumph. As the brand awaits Lantink’s inaugural vision, Gaultier stands in a beautiful liminal space: rooted in its boundary-pushing DNA, yet eager for its next act. For now, the future appears thrillingly open, illuminated one dramatic spotlight at a time.
Images courtesy of Jean Paul Gaultier
