Fashion’s eternal enfant terrible, Jean-Paul Gaultier, is the creative director at the French luxury fashion house Hermès.

He popularized the navy-and-white stripy Breton fisherman shirt and is best known for unconventional runway models, putting men in skirts and Madonna in her cone-shaped bra.

Gaultier apprenticed for Pierre Cardin in 1970 and also for Paris couturiers, Jacques Esterel and Jean Patou. He started his own label in 1976 and, with backing from a Japanese company, launched a women’s line. By the mid-80s, his avant-garde designs were gaining broader acclaim, and he eventually introduced a jeans’ line, fragrance and a haute couture collection.

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When Hermès International SA invested $23 million in Jean-Paul Gaultier SA in 1999, it gave Gaultier the momentum to build a retail network. The designer called the pact a dream marriage.

The Hermès-Gaultier bond gained further strength in 2003, when the fashion house named Gaultier creative director. At this time Gaultier’s own haute couture business lost money, restructured and returned to profitability within a couple years.