After all the hoop-de-dooh of Fashion Week in New York, the NYTimes caught up with Jean-Paul Gaultier yesterday for something of an update and retrospective (“The Prime of an Enfant Terrible”). Turns out, the designer so identified with ’80s and ’90s trash-and-chic (tattoo-print body stockings, tight sailor pants and yes, corsets and conical bras) has been updating himself, particularly because of business problems with his ready-to-wear efforts.

But amid all that, there’s this detail:

There is good reason to re-evaluate Mr. Gaultier, thanks in part to the popularity of an exhibition of his designs now touring museums in North America. It is a reminder of his influence.

“The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk,” when it was first shown at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts last summer, had an attendance of more than 175,000 fans. At the Dallas Museum of Art, where the show was exhibited from November through February, nearly 115,000 people attended, making it one of the 10 most popular exhibitions in the museum’s history. It moves to the de Young Museum in San Francisco on March 24.