Jean Paul Gaultier's Giant Cicadas

Jean Paul Gaultier isn't getting any pats on the back from the fashion world for his seemingly uninspired fall/winter 2008 collection. And to that I say, "Tsk, tsk." According to style.com, Gaultier stumbled this season because the haute couture stage, "isn't the place where you expect to see great designers trotting out old ideas, unless that is, something fabulously unforeseen comes out of them." But aside from his signature heavily-structured exoskeltons and strappy nuances, there was far more to this collection than meets the eye.

Was there a little too much "Blond Ambition World Tour 1990"? Maybe. But the textures, materials, and structural mastery used in his latest collection felt more like the well-veined wings of the giant cicada than everyone's favorite platinum blonde material girl (although her legs are probably looking a little well-veined these days.) And given the cicada's amazing ability to transform itself by emerging from it's former self into something amazing, it's not hard to draw the correlation between Gaultier's attempt to take something old and dated by breathing new life into it. I say, bravo Jean Paul. (Oh, and if you're reading this, I'm digging the salt-and-pepper locks!)