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Duran Lantink is having a great year. After staging one of the most talked-about shows during Paris Fashion Week in March and winning the Woolmark Prize, the Dutch designer is now headed to Jean Paul Gaultier. Lantink will assume the role of Creative Director, overseeing both couture and ready-to-wear as the label concludes its successful designer collaboration project. His first collection will be shown for the Spring 2026 season in September, and for the moment, he will put his namesake brand on pause. Of Lantink’s talent and vision, Gaultier said, “I see in him the energy, audacity, and playful spirit that I had at the beginning of my own journey: the new enfant terrible of fashion.”
Lantink’s rise to fame has been marked by collections that provoke and challenge. He often uses upcycled fabrics and padded surfaces, rendering them into sculptural, surrealist clothes that exaggerate form and abstract function. In 2024, Lantink was the recipient of LVMH Prize’s Karl Lagerfeld Award and earlier, in 2018, was put on the map when Janelle Monáe wore a pair of pants he designed for her “Pynk” music video that resembled like a vagina.
Irony, and a heavy (and much-needed) dose of humor reign supreme in Lantink’s world. He has injected a sense of play and whimsy into a fashion vernacular that died a slow death during the rise of quiet luxury. Lantink’s latest collection for Fall 2025 featured pieces like animal print flares, cropped tops with inflated silhouettes, reimagined Barbour jackets, and prosthetic, bouncy boobs.
This morning, Lantink posted his own announcement of the appointment to his Instagram, with a picture of himself. In the photo, we see an 11-year-old Lantink in his hometown of Amsterdam, wearing a Jean Paul Gaultier knit hat decorated with tiny yellow horns. In the caption, he mentioned how he was “obsessed” with the hat and no idea that he’d one day be at the helm of the house that Gaultier built. He also said, “I’m grateful, proud, and incredibly lucky to be trusted with the role of permanent Creative Director at Jean Paul Gaultier. Thank you to everyone who believed in my team and me from the very beginning. Your support has meant everything.” Lantink added, “To me, Gaultier represents the ultimate house of creative spirit and savoir-faire. It’s provocative and continuously pushing boundaries. It’s the brand that brings together different disciplines around fashion to create cultural movements, changing the language of clothes and how we wear them in the streets.
Gaultier once radicalized fashion with cone bras, corsets, and sailor stripes. He opened a new portal for self-expression and made his designs come alive with theatrical shows. Imagination has been overlooked in fashion over the last few years. In many respects, we’ve been starved for singular ideas. But this appointment, plus several others that have made headlines lately, promises a bright new era for those of us who love clothes and a moment of discovery for those who don’t yet. Whether with boobs or bulbous shapes, Lantink’s rebelliousness and his new gig are fantastic signs of the times.
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