Petals for M. Gaultier

I was recently invited to Paris by the French fashion designer M. Jean Paul Gaultier to attend a show for his new haute-couture collection.

These photos were taken when Joseph and I met him backstage. 

M. Gaultier is good friends with the British designer Mr John Galliano, who dressed me for the video for Break it All, one of the songs on my new album . The Break it All video, by the way, was directed by another Frenchman, the famous director and choreographer Kamel Ouali. You can watch it here.

M. Gaultier and Mr Galliano were recently having a coffee in Paris's Cafe de Flore when M. Gaultier asked his friend if he'd invite me to Paris.

"They are calling Valeriya the Russian Madonna," he said. "I simply have to meet her."

I was excited about meeting him too - I have often described him in interviews as one of my favourite designers.

Joseph gave M. Gaultier an album of photographs of me wearing his dresses, and I gave him a copy of my last album, My Tenderness, with a little surprise in it...petals from a rose.

He loved his gifts and promised to be at the launch party for my new album in Moscow on March 15.