Thierry Mugler, who died on Sunday at the age of 73, was a director at heart as famous for his tailoring that turned women into spooktacular creatures as he was for his blockbuster-like runway shows because for him fashion was a show.
“I have always thought that fashion was not enough on its own and that it had to be shown in its musical and theatrical environment”, Thierry Mugler, a former dancer, often told.
“Today’s parades are the continuation of what Mugler invented. The collections were pretexts for parades”, remembered Didier Grumbach, former CEO of Thierry Mugler and ex-president of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture.
Born in Strasbourg in December 1948, Mugler was hired at the age of 14 in the ballet corps of the Opéra du Rhin before taking lessons at the school of decorative arts in the Alsatian capital. He already creates his own clothes from those bought at flea markets.
At the age of 20, he moved to Paris in search of a commitment to another corps de ballet. He will have more success with his personal wardrobe. Thierry Mugler very quickly became a freelance stylist and worked for various houses in Paris, London and Milan.
Indecent exposure
In 1973, he took the plunge and created his own label “Café de Paris”, before a year later founding the company “Thierry Mugler” and imposing his structured and sophisticated elegance, a fashion that exacerbated women’s shapes: padded accentuated shoulders, plunging necklines, nipped waists and plump hips. “Dancing taught me a lot about posture, the organization of the garment, the importance of the shoulders, the bearing of the head, the game and the rhythm of the legs”, said the designer
Object of fantasies, the Mugler woman is an outrage to modesty, a galactic siren, a cybernetic robot, a fantastic animal… She is a hell’s angel in her Harley-Davidson bustier or a Marilyn in a flesh pink rubber lace sheath . Its couture also saw the light of day with recognizable basque suits at first glance.
Mugler, who reigned over the fashion of the 80s, has the show in his blood: for the tenth anniversary of his house, in 1984, he organized the first public fashion presentation in Europe, at the Zenith, in front of 6,000 people, like a rock concert. Tickets were sold for 178 francs (27 euros) each.
The parade, placed under the sign of the liturgical, divine and mysticism, took place on a 35-meter podium. As usual, it controls everything from accessories to soundtrack. “My measure is excess”, he said.
Men and perfumes
For the 20th anniversary, the creator chooses the Cirque d’hiver. 75 stars and models, from Naomi Campbell and Jerry Hall to American heiress Patricia Hearst, actress Tippi Hedren and even James Brown in the finale emerging from a giant star to the rhythms of “Sex Machine”.
Thierry Mugler, who launched a men’s collection in 1978, benefited from a tremendous publicity stunt thanks to the Minister of Culture Jack Lang, whose “Mao collar” suit signed by the designer caused a scandal in 1985 on the benches of the National Assembly.
The other great success of the Mugler house is undoubtedly the launch in 1992 of the first women’s perfume, “Angel”, in collaboration with Clarins, which entered the capital of the company before taking control in 1997. ” Angel” will compete for first place in sales with the mythical No5 of Chanel.
In 2013, he created musical shows in Paris and Berlin, including “Mugler Follies” to “shake up” the art of the revue with the help of transformists and ambiguous creatures in an astonishing “tribute to all the beauties”.
After leaving fashion, the couturier has also pushed the art of metamorphosis to the point of becoming unrecognizable, body and face, by resorting to intensive bodybuilding and cosmetic surgery, while engaging in meditation and yoga.
“The first emergency was to reclaim my body, exhausted by my years of dancing and sewing, like a rebirth, a way of erasing the past”, explained the couturier, claiming “(his) new bodily home”, and demanding that he be referred to as “Manfred T. Mugler” henceforth.
A major exhibition entitled “Thierry Mugler, Couturissime”, designed by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, is currently dedicated to him at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris. It was launched at the end of September, when Fashion Week returned to the parades after being confined during the pandemic. A symbol for the one who was the pioneer of the parade show.
24/01/2022 01:52:24 – Paris (AFP) – © 2022 AFP