Jean Paul Gaultier Used 3D Printing for Five Looks in Its AW26 Couture Show

The printer made the shape, the atelier made it couture

Jean Paul Gaultier's Autumn/Winter 2026-27 haute couture collection, shown in Paris in July, included five looks that started on industrial 3D printers before they ever touched a sewing machine.

Duran Lantink directed his first couture collection for the house. The Dutch designer builds garments that reshape the body rather than fit it, and the printed pieces reflect that approach. Look 7 is a deformed bustier printed in raw TPU, then sanded, primed, and dipped repeatedly into tinted latex to match the model's skin. Freckles and moles were hand-painted afterward.

Five printed looks, five finishing processes

Sculpteo produced the components on HP Multi Jet Fusion for the structural pieces and on SLS for Look 19, the snake scales dress. That garment is built from thousands of individual PA12 scales, each printed separately, then sewn on by hand in overlapping rows. The material does not bend, but the garment does.

Look 11 is a guipure dress with a 3D printed bodice and domed skirt structure. Maison du Flock applied the surface by hand, laying fiber directly onto the shell. Look 26 started with a 3D body scan, which designer ROMI reworked into a feathered serpent exoskeleton. Sculpteo printed the TPU sections, and Paris plumassier Maison Février covered the whole thing in pink feathers. Look 32 is a burgundy bodysuit built around a 3D printed core, then formed in hand-dyed leather by Whitaker Malem.

Why 3D printing for couture

The pattern is consistent across all five looks. The printer handled geometry that could not be cut and sewn, and it delivered it on a schedule that left no room for trial and error. That matters for a couture house producing one-off pieces on fixed calendar dates.

Lantink's debut shows where the technology actually adds value. It is not about printing an entire garment. It is about printing the parts that conventional methods cannot make at all.