For the 2011 JUST FOR LAUGHS FESTIVAL in Montreal, street performers presented a carnival based on the fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier – social, elegant and playful – during a colourful weekend. A magnificent homage that even France has never paid to the bad boy of fashion! Based on an original idea by Danielle Roy, in line with the “La planète mode de Jean Paul Gaultier – De la rue aux étoiles” exhibition presented at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Canadian artist and Luc Petit offered the public the JEAN PAUL GAULTIER PARADE and finale. This international parade brought together numerous professional artists but it was, above all, the 1600 or so citizens of Greater Montreal who took part in the festivities. While the costumes dazzled the crowds and the hairdos and makeup were reminiscent of the world’s greatest fashion shows, the project’s ambition was, above all, to mix the emotional with the spectacular. A carnival presented within the framework of JUST FOR LAUGHS and produced by ROYbox, with the amicable participation of Jean Paul Gaultier, who said he was touched at the sight of the procession which, for him, was like a “childhood dream”.