Youth, excess and identity collide in ‘Junior,’ the first campaign by Duran Lantink for Jean Paul Gaultier, where archive becomes raw material and silhouette turns into attitude.
A new chapter begins for Jean Paul Gaultier, and it doesn’t arrive quietly. With ‘Junior’, the house unveils its Spring/Summer 2026 campaign under Duran Lantink, marking both his first official campaign and the return of ready-to-wear after more than a decade. Shot by Inez and Vinoodh and styled by Jodie Barnes, the campaign channels the late 1980s through a lens that feels immediate rather than nostalgic. Big hair, sculpted silhouettes and a cast led by Leon Dame construct a universe where fashion operates as performance, foregrounding character, attitude and play.
The title ‘Junior’ is more than a reference. It recalls Gaultier’s historical diffusion line while positioning Lantink as a new enfant terrible—less interested in preserving legacy than in destabilising it. His approach does not quote the archive; it dismantles it. Marinière stripes, trompe-l’œil, tattoo mesh and the iconic cone bra are cut, distorted and reassembled into forms that feel unstable, playful and deliberately provocative.
This strategy aligns with Lantink’s broader practice, defined by reconstruction and hybridisation. Known for merging existing garments into new compositions, he treats clothing as a mutable system rather than a fixed object, collapsing references, materials and identities into something unresolved.
What emerges is a campaign built on character rather than clothing. The cast performs identity rather than modelling it, reinforcing one of Gaultier’s enduring ideas: fashion as a space where gender, persona and desire remain fluid. Here, that idea is amplified through Lantink’s lens, where transformation becomes both aesthetic and conceptual.
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