Duran Lantink on Tilda Swinton, Couture, and Being “Not Gaultier”

Whether you’re obsessed with his gravity-defying, uncanny-valley aesthetic or think he’s an affront to the legacy of Jean Paul Gaultier, Duran Lantink is the man on everybody’s lips. The Dutch designer has rapidly proven himself to be an unstoppable force of camp modernism in the world of fashion, testing the limits of what fabric is capable of while eschewing the limits of the human body entirely. Following his much-lauded debut couture collection, Lantink took a transatlantic call from Interview Editor-in-Chief Mel Ottenberg, to discuss the particular challenges of putting on a runway show during a historic heat wave, Tilda Swinton, time travel, and how he learned to accept his haters.

THURSDAY 8:13 AM JULY 16, 2026 NEW YORK CITY

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MEL OTTENBERG: Hi, Duran.

DURAN LANTINK: Hi, Mel.

OTTENBERG: How are you this morning?

LANTINK: I’m good. How are you?

OTTENBERG: Are you destroyed from your couture show? You look great.

LANTINK: I am actually a little bit destroyed, but that was mainly because I basically had to go to a wedding after the show, which is insane.

OTTENBERG: In Amsterdam?

LANTINK: Yes, so I had to take the train, go to fucking Holland, see my family, go to a wedding, and then I had to go back on Monday. So it’s like, now I’m dying.

OTTENBERG: That sounds really painful. Okay, so I didn’t go to your first couture show.

LANTINK: I know. You said you were coming.

OTTENBERG: I lied, and I have FOMO. I have so much FOMO about how excited the world was about it that I wanted to talk to you

LANTINK: Thank you.

OTTENBERG: What’s it like working on a couture show, working with the ladies and making actual couture as a first time couture designer?

LANTINK: It’s fucking scary because it’s a completely different way of working. You know what I mean? You design something, and they become [your] babies, and you have to put all the trust in it. The process is way more slow, but what’s amazing is that you get to work with people that are super crafted. But it was very nerve-wracking.

OTTENBERG: And are these Gaultier Paris people?

LANTINK: Yeah.

OTTENBERG: So sick.

LANTINK: It’s amazing. They’re on the sixth floor and I’m on the seventh floor, so I can drop down every single day, every hour, and walk around nervous to see if something changed.

OTTENBERG: Were you nervous to show them the designs?

LANTINK: Not really. I don’t really get nervous to show designs. I feel like you have to get to know each other, and then you come in with a completely different idea that maybe they don’t feel comfortable with in the beginning and you need to make them understand that it’s fun to work on. So it was more being nervous trying to figure out how enthusiastic they would get. But in the end, they were very enthusiastic. I think they like new challenges.

OTTENBERG: What was the mood board like?

LANTINK: I don’t work with mood boards. I think it’s really important to treat it as a laboratory, just to experiment and see. I think in the beginning, the idea was about taking space. What is couture about, and what’s my first memory of couture, which is Marie Antoinette and these very dysfunctional objects where you rise above humanity, because you give yourself power by not being functional. I thought that was such a weird thought, but also kind of relatable in the world that we’re living in now.

OTTENBERG: Tell me more about the Marie Antoinette part.

LANTINK: It’s funny because you get so in the process that, at a certain point, you don’t really think about Marie Antoinette anymore. I have to be really honest—which is going to be the first time I’m saying this—It was actually Orlando.

OTTENBERG: Oh, Tilda Swinton.

LANTINK: Yeah, where she time travels, so she’s in all these different stages of history. At a certain point, she’s Marie Antoinette and she has this huge dress. So, I think that was interesting for me, to think about Marie Antoinette, but also about the future and about how those worlds can collide to create something that feels quite futuristic, but still has this historical part about it.

MEL: So, Leon is time traveling and his body is warped by the speed.

DURAN: Yes.

MEL: I love that.

DURAN: Leon had to come in many times.

MEL: I’m sure.

DURAN: It’s like corset, 3D scanning, printing, another corset. It’s so funny. Luckily, we’re friends.

MEL: Ultimate male couture muse.

DURAN: He really is, isn’t he?

OTTENBERG: It’s really phenomenal. When you’re doing this, do you see the runway, or a fantasy world, or someone wearing it? What is Lantink seeing? What’s the inside of your mind look like?

LANTINK: At certain points, I try to picture it in this movie scene of Orlando where she rides on the motorcycle and everything is covered in white. That was such an amazing space, so I was just trying to think about that. But in general, I think my obsession is mainly with clothes, so we’re always starting with a form. I see a form, and then I try to cover it in an archetype. How do you say that? Like, a down jacket or something. So I try to imagine and form it into an actual garment, but I don’t think I’m that romantic in a way where I’m trying to see a movie scene. I used to, but maybe I don’t have time for it.

MEL: That’s fair. What really struck me watching the show again this morning is how much of an exact continuation this show is from Duran Lantink three years ago, which is beautiful to see, like the up-cycle and the lumps.

DURAN: Yes.

OTTENBERG: For the first two Gaultier shows, up-cycling was not a focus, right?

LANTINK: No. The second one, we used a lot of dead stock materials and up-cycled fabrics, but we didn’t really communicate that because I don’t want it to become a marketing stunt. Within couture, I think it’s great because it’s unique pieces anyway, so it makes complete sense. I’d like to dig into that more and see where we can bring that. In an ideal world, I would do it for ready-to-wear as well, but I think step-by-step you integrate that.

OTTENBERG: Yeah. The real good story would be for us to talk about hate, which we’ve talked about so many times together offline, but now I’m interviewing you, bitch. But wait, people really loved this show, right? It’s not just my friends. It’s very popular.

LANTINK: Yeah, overall, people seem to like it. There’s always the mean person that feels the urge to say something, but I think that’s fine. I mean, it’s the world that we’re living in right now anyway.

OTTENBERG: I love your first Gaultier show, as you know. But it was reviled by the internet. It’s fine for people to not like it, because I think bad press is good press and it made it infamous. But for people to be saying, “It’s not Gaultier,” is mental illness. It was totally Gaultier.

LANTINK: Mr. Gaultier also really seems to think it was Gaultier, so how can you disagree with the person that is basically Gaultier?

OTTENBERG: But technology really breeds hate and contempt and people saying a lot of shit. How do you feel about that in general?

LANTINK: I think it goes with ups and downs. I started understanding this need, because I feel like a lot of people need a certain type of attention. Once you get a like, you get pushed forward, and then more people start liking it. So you get this sort of belonging, right? You’re like, “Oh my god. I’m doing something good, because I got a lot of attention.” I guess that’s fine, but I don’t really understand why you would take the energy. If I don’t like something, I always try to see if I can like something because I’m curious. And if I can’t, I would shut the fuck up. Move on and search for something that you do like, but I’m just not that person. I don’t think I’m a hateful person, so I don’t really connect with those people, but I guess it’s just something that they need to feel seen or something. I don’t know.

OTTENBERG: I do feel like a lot of things that are really cool in fashion these days are hated very loudly first, and then people come around quite quickly. Does that sort of negativity fuel or inspire you to do a great show like this one?

LANTINK: Not really. I just try to follow my own path. Sometimes you get distracted because, at the same time, you have feelings. So when you see something, you’re like, “What the fuck? Why don’t people like it?” But social media is just so fucking big. There are a billion people on social media, so all of a sudden you have loads of judges. You used to only have press, so you didn’t really know if people would like it or not. Now, it’s so out in the open, so it makes it a little bit harder. But at the end of the day, I need to stay true to myself, and I need to show things that I find interesting. People might not like it, but fuck that. Maybe in a couple of years they do. I can’t say.

OTTENBERG: A lot of people love that show. I loved it. The cool people that I know were like, “Oh my god.” But then at the same time you’re seeing the internet going crazy. Then, I remember people being like, “Wait. Wasn’t it good though? We liked it?” I’m like, “We love it because it’s fab. We don’t not like it now because of a peanut gallery.” 

LANTINK: That’s also interesting. It [shows] how influential social media can be. If the masses have an opinion on its not being good, then people start doubting if it was good or not. But the more interesting thing about it is, can we ever create a revolutionary thing? Because people are just angry. They get angry at something, and then the next day they get angry at something else. There’s no focus anymore. Nobody’s focused. Everybody’s just raging and seeing where they can go to comment and give their negative reaction on something.

OTTENBERG: How was the backstage of this show?

LANTINK: Horrible.

OTTENBERG: Well, it was 900 degrees Celsius, right?

LANTINK: Basically. The air conditioning broke in this building, so it was fucking hot and insane. They had some, how do you say that? Moving air conditioning, but that doesn’t really work. Then, there were so many people and people were late. Normally, the show starts late, but this time people came in late, so we were ready. Everybody was dressed. Everybody was fucking overheating in big dresses and coats, and we were like, “Ahh, this show needs to start right now.” It was insane. I’ve never had an experience like that.

OTTENBERG: What do you like to do after the show? Did you party? Did you get drunk?

LANTINK: Yeah, yeah. I got drunk with my friends, and then we went back to the studio. We celebrated here with the whole team. It was fun.

OTTENBERG: Oh, one more question. The finale look, which is so beyond incredible, who is she?

LANTINK: Matilda. She’s really good, no? She has this type of innocence, it was really good on her. It’s nice with couture because you get the time to really typecast which girl is the most perfect in that look. Normally, I need to do changes as well, and this was the first time I’ve never done a change. So it was quite good because we could focus on which person is great for that look. 

OTTENBERG: Okay. Well, I think I got it all. I just wanted to talk to you because I love the vibe and I wanted to have a casual conversation with you about it.

LANTINK: Next time, you have to be there.

OTTENBERG: Next time, I will be there. Have you ever been to a couture show?

LANTINK: No. Honestly, have I ever been to a fashion show? I’ve been once to Nicolas Di Felice’s fashion show, but other than that I don’t think I’ve ever been to one.

OTTENBERG: Wow. Only backstage, only designing. What are you working on now? What are you doing today?

LANTINK: Now, we’re working on Spring/Summer [2027]. We have a fitting tomorrow, so we’re diving directly into the next collection, which is good. We are going to have quite good shoes.

OTTENBERG: Okay, that’s exciting. That I will be at, and hopefully I will be at the next Gaultier show. I promise. Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to me, and good luck today.

LANTINK: Of course. Thank you, Mel.

OTTENBERG: Bye, babe.

LANTINK: Bye-bye.