Jean Paul Gaultier still has a taste for fashion’s outer fringes: As curator and visual design director of the subsequent cabaret-style revue at Berlin’s Friedrichstadt-Palast, Gaultier conscripted the alien-looking Canadian couple often known as Fecal Matter, and the Russian performance artist Sasha Frolova, synonymous with latex and abstract forms.

“Falling | In Love” is the title for the show, billed as the costliest ever mounted by the state theater owned by the City of Berlin. The production budget was nearly 14 million euros and the show debuts on Sept. 21.

The project represents an encore for Gaultier, who had designed around 500 costumes for “The One” revue that opened in 2016, fulfilling a childhood dream.

The couture legend, who retired from the runway in 2020, said he’s “thrilled” to be back in show business with Friedrichstadt-Palast, which boasts the biggest theater stage on the planet.

Gaultier said his latest collaboration “makes me go even further in my creativity, in addition to working with recent talents like Fecal Matter or Sasha Frolova. I can’t wait for the audience to enjoy this recent adventure.”

Part Moulin Rouge, part Cirque de Soleil, part rock concert, the “grand shows” served up by Friedrichstadt-Palast involve greater than 100 performers, including singers, dancers and acrobats.

In line with the theater, the word “falling” within the show title alludes to the sense of foreboding felt by many individuals in these troubled times, though the video teaser for the show depicts a bare-chested dancer falling right into a thick pile of colourful flowers.

“We imagine in the great thing about this world and in the nice of individuals, despite all the pieces,” commented Berndt Schmidt, general director and producer on the theater, suggesting that visitors will fall into “a sea of affection.”

The show’s protagonist is a young, deaf poet who falls through “the grey asphalt of civilization” right into a “hidden garden of affection” where he experiences “the everlasting human dream of a greater world.”

Gaultier said he selected Fecal Matter’s Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran for the best way they query gender boundaries and ideals of beauty with their fashions, and slyly poke fun at consumerism.

The pale, bald duo – a fan of darkened eyeballs, zombie makeup and body dysphoria – founded Fecal Matter in 2016 and today boast 755,000 followers on Instagram. In 2021, they fronted a campaign for Converse x Rick Owens sneakers.

Frolova makes sculptures, digital art and inflatable latex costumes which are colourful, cartoonish and otherworldly.

Austrian crystal maker Swarovski can be involved within the production’s costumes and the stage design.