Amy Winehouse's Family Offended By Jean Paul Gaultier's Fashion Tribute [PHOTOS]
Beehives, Eyeliner, And Smokes Hit The Runway
by Emma Jones
Jean Paul Gaultier, a favorite designer of Lady Gaga and Madonna, is facing a backlash after debuting his new spring/summer 2012 collection at Paris Fashion Week. Why? Because the collection is modeled after the late Amy Winehouse.
The flippant French designer sent Winehouse lookalikes -- complete with beehive hair, swipes of black eyeliner and the occasional cigarette -- down the Paris runway with a Winehouse soundtrack playing in the background.
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Gaultier calls the collection a tribute to the Rehab singer, saying "she was an icon of fashion and truly, the sense of how she mixed the clothes - it was great." But Mitch Winehouse, Amy's grieving father, sees the clothing from a different perspective. "We don't support the Jean Paul Gaultier collection. It's in bad taste," Mitch tweeted.
"The family was upset to see those pictures, they were a total shock," Mitch tells The Sun, before adding, "to see her image lifted wholesale to sell clothes was a wrench we were not expecting or consulted on. We're proud of her influence on fashion but find black veils on models, smoking cigarettes with a barbershop quartet singing her music in bad taste."
Mitch isn't the only one to find Gaultier's fashion statements offensive. Some of Amy's friends agree, with the always-vocal Kelly Osbourne tweeting: "Although @JPGaultier was paying homage to my dear friend & icon to the world I found it to be lucratively selfish and distasteful!"
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