March 23, 2012 By Catherine Bigelow SF Gate
Tout les San Francisco seems to have already gone gaga for Jean Paul Gaultier, the Parisian bad boy of exquisite yet edgy haute couture. And his de Young Museum exhibition, “The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk,” doesn’t even officially open until Saturday.
@JPGaultier and #gaultier are trending madly in the local Twittersphere, with felicitations and invites for the designer to catch Kathleen Turner in SHN’s Theater’s production of “High” or make the scene at a number of the city’s drag clubs.
But last night deep-pocketed donors, couture-clad Swells and leather-bound toga boys were in the cat-bird seat at Ken Fulk‘s tricked-out SOMA loft where the devilish designer delighted in the fanfare of this de Young dinner fete.
Site of the famed, former Mr. S. Leather Factory, Fulk’s factory of fun set the stage for a “heavenly” Paula LeDuc dinner followed by late-night dance romp downstairs where the delights were slightly more naughty-in-nature.
Among the revelers: Fine Arts Museums Board President Dede Wilsey; Alan Morrell waving the flag for lead corporate sponsor Nordstrom; exhibition co-sponsors Yurie and Carl Pascarella; Christine Suppes and Suzy Kellems Dominik; fashion journalist Suzy Menkes; Gaultier CEO Ralph Toledano; FAM curator Jill D’Alessandro; and Gaultier’s posse which included his former model-muse turned filmmaker Farida Khelfa, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts curator Thierry- Maxime Loriot, who conceived the “Gaultier” exhibition and burlesque artist Dita Von Teese who surprised her pal by performing a titillating, cowboy-themed fan dance on a stage flanked by two, topless cowboy-hatted hunks.
“I feel relaxed in San Francisco. It seems you can live well here, just by walking and discovering beautiful colors and places,” enthused Gaultier. “San Francisco has always been a city of freedom. And a lot of soul.”