French designer Thierry Mugler, who ruled 1980s fashion and continued to delight international stars with his dramatic silhouetted outfits, died on Sunday aged 73 from “natural death“, announced his press secretary to AFP.
“We have the immense sadness to inform you of the death of Mr. Manfred Thierry Mugler which occurred on Sunday January 23, 2022.“, is it also written in a statement posted on the official Facebook account of the creator. “That his soul rests in peace.“
According to his press officer Jean-Baptiste Rougeot, the death of the great couturier, who now called himself Manfred Thierry Mugler, occurred unexpectedly on Sunday afternoon. He still had plans and was due to announce new collaborations earlier this week, he said.
You have changed our perception of beauty
The first tributes arrived overnight from the United States. “You have changed our perception of beauty. (…) Your legacy is something I carry with me in everything I do“, wrote on Instagram the artistic director of Mugler, the American Casey Cadwallader.
Singer Diana Ross shared on Twitter a photo with the French designer during one of her shows in Paris in 1990, with these words: “I will miss you, Thierry Mugler, it was a wonderful time in our lives“.
“Rest in peace Thierry Mugler“, wrote the singer Beyonce on her site, on a black and white photo of a smiling Thierry Mugler.
Born in Strasbourg in December 1948, Thierry Mugler arrived in Paris at the age of 20 and then created his own label.Coffee of Paris” in 1973, before a year later founding the company “Thierry Mugler“.
Its structured and sophisticated silhouettes quickly imposed themselves. The “mugler woman“, with accentuated shoulders, plunging necklines and corseted waists, has toured the world, from Jerry Hall to Kim Kardashian.
A director at heart, he had made an impression by becoming a pioneer, from the 1970s, of grand spectacle parades.
He had later embarked on the creation of perfumes, his first female model “Angel“launched in 1992 to great success, going so far as to compete for first place in sales with the mythical Chanel N°5.
His fashion collections had also marked the political world, as when in 1985, the French Minister of Culture Jack Lang was whistled at the National Assembly because of his Mao collar suit signed Mugler, worn without a tie.
Thierry Mugler retired from fashion in 2002, but today’s pop culture icons like Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Cardi B and Kim Kardashian still wear his archive outfits for special occasions.
Thus in September 2021, for the inauguration of the exhibition “Thierry Mugler, Couturissime“At the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris, the American rapper Cardi B had posed by her side wearing a spectacular red sequined dress, topped with feathers.
“Mugler wanted to break away from haute couture which corresponded to an elite, and show that young people could also wear haute couture and that it could be something other than a dress to go to a chic evening.“Thierry-Maxime Loriot, curator of the exhibition, originally produced by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, told AFP at the time.
Among the latest photos on her Facebook account, we could see Kim Kardashian, in a metallic outfit and cowbow hat, designed for her for Halloween by the designer.
In 2013 and 2014, the couturier wanted “hustle“the art of the magazine by launching the”Mugler Follies” in a Parisian theater, transformed into a cabaret.
Singular dancers from the filiform to the Botero model, ventriloquists, singer, fado singer, acrobats, unprecedented strength numbers: it was “long time“that he wanted to set up a review,”a free art, joy of living and exchange, without message, where everything is possible“, he told AFP at the time.
“I don’t really miss fashion“, he explained then.
“I do a lot more now: architecture, design, setting up a magazine, staging… When I was a designer, it was a daily staging offered to clients. Now it’s a narration, a story, shows, movies…“