Why, that dress is just scrumptious

Jean PAUL GAULTIER may be an aging enfant terrible of the Parisian fashion world, but he hasn’t lost his touch. When invited to stage a retrospective of his work at the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris, he declared that displaying clothes in museums is boring and proposed creating a bakery instead.

The result is “Pain Couture,” an exhibition of Gaultier-style garments and accessories made of traditional French bakery products, including baguettes, batards, buns and country loaves. The wardrobe on view reinterprets the designer’s classics: thongs, umbrellas, sailor blouses, kilts and, yes, Madonna’s corset dress.

All this food art may make viewers hungry, but Gaultier is prepared. He installed a working bakery on the lower floor to produce the couture and more easily edible fare. He also transformed a small gallery into a shop, where a Gaultier-attired sales force dispenses baguettes and pastries, signed by the artist. The idea is to nourish the body as well as the mind, Gaultier says.

The exhibition, which runs through Oct. 10 in the foundation’s glass structure, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, is a work in progress. Like any good fashion show, “Pain Couture” presents a changing array of enticements as objects in Gaultier’s “summer collection” are retired and replenished.

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Suzanne Muchnic