(Sub)Culture

Jean Paul Gaultier Salutes Madonna in Diet Coke Ads

The wild French designer will also design costumes for the singer's upcoming tour

April 13, 2012

jean paul gaultier diet coke madonna — Jean Paul Gaultier attends the Coca Cola Light By Jean Paul Gaultier Party at Le Trianon in Paris on April 12, 2012. Foc Kan/WireImage

Jean Paul Gaultier’s history with Madonna is the stuff of MTV legend; her infamous Blonde Ambition-era cone bras and corsets stand alone as some of the French design maverick’s most iconic pieces. So, naturally, when he was recently commisioned as the creative director of Diet Coke, he couldn’t help but reference the pop culture touchstone in the ads.

Gaultier’s first Coca Cola Light commercial follows up from a series of early web ads. The extended version, streamable below, shows the designer engaged in a playful, vaguely creepy fashion shoot involving dolls while a remix of Dragonette’s “I Get Around” plays. At the ad’s end, the new bottles make their fashionable debut: in breton stripes, bras and corsets, they are inarguably the coolest way for a beverage to salute pop and high style in one swoop (or shall we say swig?). The accompanying print ads feature the designer in spectacular, classic Madonna drag; suffice to say the ad wizards at Coca Cola HQ are a lot more liberal than those at Pepsi circa 1989.

Fittingly, Gaultier also confirmed today via Grazia that he will be designing costumes for Madonna’s upcoming world tour.