Nicolas di Felice is the next guest designer at Jean Paul Gaultier

After the collaboration with Simone Rocha, guest designer at Jean Paul Gaultier for Haute Couture SS24, the next creative to take the reins of the French house for a season has been announced. Nicolas Di Felice, creative director of Courrèges, will sign his first haute couture collection during Paris Couture Week, scheduled from June 24 to 27. Leading the brand artistically since 2021, with Courrèges, the Belgian designer has brought back into vogue an aesthetic firmly rooted in a space-age imaginary, as the brand's founder wanted in the 1960s. It will be interesting to see how he will manage to reinterpret Jean Paul Gaultier's stylistic codes by blending his DNA with that of the enfant terrible's house. «I find that Nicolas has been bold and creative since the beginning of his career,» Gaultier said in an interview with WWD. Choosing him aligns perfectly with the idea of seeing what a designer can bring to my style.»

Di Felice's collection for Jean Paul Gaultier marks the seventh collaboration of the house with an external designer, a project born in 2020 with the aim of infusing new life into the designer's legacy and brand founder. Before Di Felice and Simone Rocha, guest designers at Jean Paul Gaultier also included Julien Dossena, Haider Ackermann, Olivier Rousteing, Glenn Martens, and Chitose Abe. The format was conceived after Gaultier's retirement from the scene and quickly became a fixture in Paris Couture Week. «I am grateful to have the opportunity to work with this legendary atelier and I look forward to delving into the archives,» said Di Felice. «Even though for my shows I create more exceptional pieces, at Courrèges I mainly focus on a certain practicality and wearability, so it's quite exciting for me to let go for a while.»

Di Felice recounted that during his formative years, the name Jean Paul Gaultier resonated as one of the leading creatives even in the small Belgian town where he grew up. Despite belonging to different generations of creatives, Di Felice and Gaultier share a strong bond with Nicolas Ghesquière. The current creative director of Louis Vuitton worked for a long time as an assistant to Jean Paul Gaultier, then met Di Felice years later when the Belgian designer joined his team at Balenciaga in 2008 and again in 2015 at Louis Vuitton, after spending some time in the Dior atelier with Raf Simons.