Jean Paul Gaultier’s partnership with New York’s LGBT Community Center is getting an arty twist.
The Puig-owned brand is kicking off a new exhibition at The Center inspired by hero fragrance Le Male, which opens for two days starting Wednesday. Called “Et Gaultier Créa L’Homme: Le Male — Past, Present, Future,” the space has three stages to mimic the top, heart and base notes of Le Male’s construction.
The introduction to the event is what the brand described as an “olfactory striptease,” rife with erotic motifs, where the scent is diffused. From there, a theater-inspired space displays bustiers, leatheror lace abs, sailor vests or unisex skirts, per the brand, and wrap up with displays from contemporary artists such as artist Pepo Moreno, graffiti artist and performer Hugo Gyrl, film photographer Matías Alvial, and photographers Elliott Jerome Brown Jr., Hunter Abrams and Sam Lee.
Other participating creatives include Peter McGough, Marko Monroe, D.J. Oscar Nñ, and the cohort was selected in tandem with community organizer Adam Eli.
“The Center is a good example of the partnerships we have been building with this brand,” said Frédéric Appaire, vice president, fragrances, Jean Paul Gaultier. “We’re re-promoting the brand’s values; when we speak about Gaultier, there was a younger generation that did not really know the original values.”
To that end, The Center was established in 1983 as a resource during the AIDS crisis. The brand has supported the space for the last five years, and was awarded the Corporate Impact Award at The Center Dinner in 2024.
“We are finally touching the younger generations just by speaking about the brand, telling the story of it, showing the values of Jean Paul. It’s much more interesting to connect with them that way,” Appaire said. “We wanted something that would be a real experience, and that’s where this exhibition is so important for us, and we talk about the collaboration between Jean Paul Gaultier and [Le Male perfumer] Francis Kurkdjian in the ’90s.”
Those efforts seem to be paying off. “Jean Paul Gaultier is doing super well,” Appaire said of the state of the brand. “I think we have reactivated the feminine branch of the business with the launch of Divine, and that was the first step.”
For the first half of 2025, Jean Paul Gaultier led parent company Puig’s growth in fragrance, as reported.
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