Jean Paul Gaultier paid homage to Amy Winehouse on Wednesday as his muse for his spring/summer 2012 couture collection at Paris Fashion Week, angering the late-singer's father, Mitch Winehouse.

Gaultier had his models donning Winehouse's signature beehive and cat-winged 60's eyeliner as they walked down the catwalk smoking cigarettes in brightly-coloured 1960's classic looks of fitted pencil skirts and dresses, tight bustiers and floaty silk nighties with exposed pointy bras.

"Amy Winehouse was a true style icon," Gaultier told reporters at Paris Fashion Week calling the show a "tribute."

"What she stands for above all, is uniqueness. Both in music and the way she dressed, she mixed a great many influences to create her style. She was an icon of fashion and truly, the sense of how she mixed the clothes - it was great."

One model styled to look like an Amy Winehouse clone finished the show wearing a veil and pale pink wedding gown while the models all donned black lace veils for the finale.

"It's not a funeral," Gaultier said after the show, "They are happy brides."

The show, however, was not well-received by everyone. The late-singer's father, Mitch Winehouse, said he believes the show did not portray his daughter, who died at age 27 last year of a drug overdose, in the proper light.

"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 Winehouse told The Sun. "It portrays a view of Amy when she was not at her best, and glamorises some of the more upsetting times in her life. That's upsetting for her family."

Winehouse even said that he felt that the designer should not have channeled his daughter at all.

"The family was upset to see those pictures, they were a total shock," Mitch Winehouse told The Sun. "To see her image lifted wholesale to sell clothes was a wrench we were not expecting or consulted on." 

Wednesday's show marked two days after the half-year anniversary of Winehouse's death.

"We're still grieving for her loss, and we've had a difficult week with the six-month anniversary of Amy's death."

Winehouse said that Gaultier never even asked to use Winehouse's signature look.

"No one asked us for permission or offered to make a donation to the foundation," Mitch Winehouse said. "This is purely about Gaultier making money, and that's wrong."

Jean Paul Gaultier said after the show that while he had never met the British singer, their styles were "similar."

Via: ibtmes by Nadine DeNinno

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