Jean Paul Gaultier

Jean Paul Gaultier presented his first collection in Paris in 1976 and was swiftly crowned fashion's enfant terrible, a self-taught provocateur who delighted in breaking every rule.

He mined the everyday and the outcast, the sailor's Breton stripe, the street, the underground club, and turned them into couture, finding beauty where convention saw none.

His designs questioned gender with wit and tenderness, putting men in skirts and turning underwear into outerwear, most famously the conical corset he created for Madonna's Blond Ambition tour.

Beneath the showmanship lay a true couturier of dazzling technical skill, whose tailoring and craft earned the respect of the most demanding ateliers in Paris.

Today the Gaultier name endures as a celebration of diversity, humour and freedom, a house that proved fashion is at its best when it dares to provoke and to include.