‘I am always mixing as a revolt against cliché’ said Jean Paul Gaultier in 1987, after he had dressed men in webbed trousers, combined Aran knit, rubber and taffeta, and leopard-print stiletto-heeled thigh boots, thus outraging the mainstream fashion press. ‘People,’ he riposted ‘are very scared of the future.’ At 61, he reigns supreme as the ‘enfant terrible’ of fashion, and that ‘mixing’ of ideas – glamour, gay, androgyny, camp, fetish, religion, punk, tribal, underwear, kitsch – blended with elements of French couture has worked its influence on what was, in 1987, the future.

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk is at the Barbican April 9-August 25.