Jpg Choker

Endeavoring to tear down gender stereotypes and sartorial norms on the catwalk, making underwear outerwear, putting men in skirts and models of all shapes and sizes on the runway, Jean Paul Gaultier has created wildly provocative, transformational designs for day dresses, gowns, tops and other garments that draw on numerous influences and boldly merge haute couture with street sensibility.

An only child raised in the suburbs of Paris, Gaultier didn’t have a formal fashion education. But he loved to sketch and was drawn to clothing, citing the corsets in his maternal grandmother’s closet as having a formative impact on his creative direction. He’s said that some of his earliest fashion work was for his teddy bear, and later he would send his sketches to designers he revered, including Pierre Cardin.

Gaultier began his career in 1970 as an assistant to Cardin, who admired the sketches the 18-year-old had sent for his appraisal. After Gaultier had his first runway show in 1976, featuring unconventional statements like pairing motorcycle jackets with ballerina skirts, it didn’t take long for his star to rise.

Gaultier's playful but exquisitely crafted reimaginings of classic Parisian styles — the striped mariner shirt, the trench coat — soon became recurring themes of his eponymous house, which he founded with his life partner and business associate Francis Menuge in 1982.

“He was absolutely peerless for the longest time in the late ’80s and early ’90s,” fashion editor Tim Blanks told the New York Times. This was the period of Gaultier’s most iconic designs.

In 1984, Gaultier’s “Boy Toy” collection challenged men’s fashion with striped shirts and skirts — and sold around 3,000 of them. He was hailed for spectacle-laden runway shows and superb tailoring. Gaultier began to work with Madonna during the late 1980s, and, at the pop star’s request, he designed the costumes for her 1990 “Blond Ambition” tour. Her pink corset became a cultural touchstone of the era.

Gaultier continued to expand his brand. There were the colorful all-over graphic prints in the sheer stretch-tulle fabric of his Soleil line — which have gained fans in millennials seeking the authentic, easy style of 1990s fashion — and he debuted his first couture collection in 1997. Gaultier created costumes for film and stage and was nominated for a César Award for Best Costume Design for The City of Lost Children (1995) and then a second for Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element (1997).

From 2003 to 2010, Gaultier was the creative director for Hermès. The first international exhibition of his work, “The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk,” debuted in 2011 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and toured to cities including Stockholm, New York City, Dallas and London. Vintage Gaultier Birkin bags are unsurprisingly sought-after collectibles, and the So Black collection — a line that included the So Black Birkin, which featured black PVD-coated hardware — was among his last works for the brand before his departure.

Gaultier presented his last ready-to-wear collection in 2014 and in 2020 stepped down from his couture line, ending his boundary-pushing, industry-shaping reign with a raucous show of more than 230 outfits formed from fragments of collections from across his 50-year career.

One of fashion’s enfants terribles, Gaultier has never sought out pretty for pretty’s sake. Instead, he has challenged the traditional ideals of beauty. Today, the designer's vintage clothing designs — experimental undergarments cut from lace and suede, leather-trimmed evening dresses and jackets of denim, plastic or striped jersey — are as punk as they are high fashion.

Find vintage Jean Paul Gaultier dresses, skirts, jeans and accessories today on 1stDibs.

Vintage choker necklaces are elegant, alluring and stylish. Cameos, pearls, diamonds and other stones can decorate these necklaces, which come in single or multiple strands. Whether it is a statement piece or a delicate chain, these short necklaces always stand out and turn heads.

The history of the choker can be traced back thousands of years, with Sumerian examples discovered from 2600–2500 B.C. They endured as a popular form of adornment through the centuries, and during the French Revolution they took on a symbolic significance. Women wore ribbons around their throats to mark the passing of those killed by the guillotine. Soon, the plain ribbons were adorned with small cameos and other ornamentation.

European choker necklaces gained a salacious reputation in the 19th century when prostitutes were associated with black ribbons tied around the neck, such as the model in Édouard Manet’s Olympia (1863). Queen Alexandra, Princess of Wales, reversed the trend in the late 19th century by wearing a large pearl and diamond choker, reputedly to hide a scar.

Fashioned from gold, pearls and other precious stones and metals, chokers continued to be worn into the 20th century, alternately statements of wealth and rebellion. They experienced periods of revival in the 1920s, ’40s, ’70s and ’90s for both men and women.

Vintage chokers make a statement with an unmistakable air of femininity. On 1stDibs, find an alluring collection of vintage chokers today, including gold, sapphire and emerald chokers.