Savage Style Edit

Jean Paul Gaultier's Animalistic Fall 2008
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Oh, animal skins! What some will do fur the love of fashion! For his recent Paris Fashion Week show, Jean Paul Gaultier unleashed his wilder side as he showed a line of fashion line laden with animal pelts and hides.

The overall tone of the stage was set to match, with Michael Jackson’s thriller competing with animal calls blaring over the speakers. The models were draped in the most elegant of savage beasts, their own heads lain with the heads of animals as they marched down the runway.

PETA would have been outraged, but those not opposed to furs were in heaven. The collection was very realistic, the models decked for head to toe in pelts, some even swishing real animal tails behind them.

“As for accessories, silk scarves edged in raw leather were pinned to the models’ manes; other girls wore pelts on their heads, and two willing participants shaved a fish-scale pattern onto the backs of theirs. And how’s this for the ultimate extravagance?” Style.com asked. “A messenger bag and its straps made from black fox.”

For those not so into draping dead critters on their bodies, Gaultier took the animal inspiration into his fabric patterns as well, offering a cruelty free way to drape themselves in beautiful safari prints.

One flowing gown, for example, was made of the most elegant zebra-print fabric, in not a stark black and white combination, but a gentle cream and dark brown for a much more authentic feel.