VENUS IN FURS
Venus d’Arles • Circa 360 B.C • Imperial Roman • Musée du Louvre, Paris
How Jean Paul Gaultier’s iconic 1999 trompe l'oeil marble sculpture slip dress was made in the image of the Greco Roman statue thought to represent Aphrodite, appropriately named The Venus of Arles... Fittingly, Gaultier’s runway represented a sculptor’s studio, placing the models on a circular catwalk flanked by the likes of statues resembling Michelangelo’s David and the Venus de Milo among others…
Trompe L'œil Goddess Dress • Spring / Summer 1999 Collection • Jean Paul Gaultier
“The figure of a Hellenic statue wearing a draped cloth featured both on the front as well as on the backside of this Spring / Summer 1999 dress by Jean Paul Gaultier... The trompe l'oeil effect of superimposing a naked body onto a dressed body is both playful and sexually charged, two characteristics of Gaultier's quixotic and postmodern design idiom. Through his design, the living flesh becomes stone and the stone becomes cloth, yet the body underneath retains its freedom of movement.” • The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Venus d’Arles • 1784 • Benoit-Louis Henriquez
La Vénus d'Arles, discovered in several pieces in 1651 in the Roman theatre in Arles, France, originally dates to the end of the 1st century BCE. Carved from Hymettus marble, the statue is thought to be a copy of the Aphrodite of Thespiae by Praxiteles, ordered by the courtesan Phryne. In 1681 it was given to Louis XIV to decorate the Galerie des Glaces of Versailles, otherwise known as the Hall of Mirrors. There was debate as to whether she was Venus or another goddess, but the Sun King, greatly impressed by the ancient masterpiece, decided that she was a Venus. He had the statue restored by the sculptor François Girardon, who endowed her with her traditional attributes: the apple (awarded by Paris to the most beautiful goddess) and the mirror. It was ultimately seized from the royal collection during the (French) Revolution and has been at the Musée du Louvre ever since its inception.
Venus d’Arles • Circa 360 B.C • Imperial Roman • Musée du Louvre, Paris
Study of the Venus of Arles • Circa 1851 • Juan de Barroeta • Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Bilboa
Trompe L'œil Goddess Dress • Spring / Summer 1999 Collection • Jean Paul Gaultier
Study of the Venus of Arles • 1853 • Vicente Tortosa • Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid
Runway models for Jean Paul Gaultier’s Spring / Summer 1999 show • The Trompe L'œil Goddess Dress can be seen on the right
Statue of the Venus of Arles • 19th Century • Pedro Zaldo • Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid
Trompe L'œil Goddess Dress • Spring / Summer 1999 Collection • Jean Paul Gaultier
Still from Jean Paul Gaultier’s Spring / Summer 1999 show • Film courtesy of the Fashion Channel
Study of the Venus of Arles From the Front • 19th Century • Juan José Martínez de Espinosa • Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid
Still from Jean Paul Gaultier’s Spring / Summer 1999 show • Film courtesy of the Fashion Channel
Venus d’Arles • Circa 360 B.C • Imperial Roman • Musée du Louvre, Paris
