Jean Paul Gaultier Museum Fragrance Ad Campaign

Review of Jean Paul Gaultier Museum Fragrance Ad Campaign by Photographers Manon & Alma with models Ceval Omar, Emma Rose Higgins, Loic Namigandet, and Silas Lutz Fabian

Jean Paul Gaultier rewrites art history with a new campaign for its fragrance collection, shot by photographer duo Manon & Alma.

The imagery richly reimagines iconic Italian Renaissance paintings through the signature visual language of Gaultier. Venus wears a gold corseted bodysuit and sparkling fishnet stockings; Apollo is clad in a form-fitting sailor top; portraits of young aristocrats are reimagined as contemporary style royalty. In several of the shots, the characters reach beyond the frame, as if transgressing the boundary between art and life and stepping out to paint their own story.

While the compositions cleverly and sumptuously situate the brand’s design lexicon as an inheritor of legendary art traditions, also key to the campaign’s impact is the way it subverts them. With a cast that is diverse in terms of size, color, and gender expression, the campaign challenges historic notions of who can be portrayed as beautiful and how, thus emphasizing anew the brand’s values of boldly asserting individuality and the freedom for all to express beauty as they see fit.