Thierry Mugler, not just one of the most revolutionary designers
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Thierry Mugler “Butterfly” dress, “Les Insectes” Haute Couture collection, SS 1997. Runway photo.
If the word ‘uniqueness’ could be worn
Guessing many of you are already familiar with the famous picture of a woman wearing a butterfly dress, but even for those who had never seen it before, here is a focus today on its creator, a very talented french designer.
Born in Strasbourg in 1948, Thierry Mugler moved to Paris in 1972 where he started working as a freelance designer for many famous fashion houses, firstly just in Paris and quickly expanding also to fashion houses abroad in cities like Milan, London and Barcelona, gaining fame and audience very quickly.
In 1973 he created his first collection called “Cafe de Paris”, characterized by a both sophisticated and urban style. Melaka Tréanton, a famous fashion editor at the time, helped him launch his collection presenting it at an event in Tokyo, in 1976.
It was in 1978 that he created his boutique in Paris, in Place des Victoires and rapidly gained attention by the most extreme brigade of designers of the time.
He gave birth to a wide variety of signature pieces, starting from more commercial and easily wearable suits and dresses for women to the most extravagant designs, mainly made for big events (like fashion shows, theatre shows, musicals, concerts,..) and movies that became his staple pieces and the reason why he was and still is admired and venerated at such level.
His approach to fashion
All his designs, even the most wearable ones, showed his avant-garde, architectural and hyper-feminine approach to Haute Couture.
He was one of the first designers to champion diversity in his runway shows, which often tackled racism and ageism, and incorporated non-traditional models such as drag queens, pornstars, and transgender women.
His fashion shows were extravagant affairs held in arena-like environments and the collections associated with them had themes like for example sci-fi in the late seventies, an Africa theme one season, a vampire-devil theme the next, an aquatic theme the following one, featuring dresses that were looking like animals, plants, constructions, vehicles, and the most extravagant and uncommon shapes.
He designed signature looks for Michael Jackson, Madonna, Grace Jones, David Bowie, and Diana Ross, and often also created tailored and unique costumes for the most famous musicals, concerts, theater shows, video clips (i.e. George Michael’s “Too Funky” song video clip), and movies (i.e. look for actress Demi Moore in the movie “Indecent Proposal”).
Thierry Mugler 1995 show. On the left Nadja Auermann wearing a Thierry Mugler look made in collaboration with Jean-Pierre Delcros, a designer specialized in aircraft bodies; On the right, Jerry Hall wearing a shiny and full of pearls dress made especially for the actress and singer by Thierry Mugler in collaboration with corset-maker Mr. Pearl.
Thierry Mugler in the 21st century
Incredibly famous until the late 90s, his fame didn’t decrease with the arrival of the new century and the new generations. On the contrary, in 2002 Mugler collaborated again with Cirque du Soleil, and in 2009 with the artistic advisor of the singer Beyoncé creating the customs for her to use in her “I Am.. World Tour”.
In these same years, Thierry Mugler announced his willingness to retire, mentioning that "Fashion is beautiful, 3-D art on a human being. But it wasn't enough, which is why I always went on to create in other ways. For me, it isn’t the right tool anymore. But perfume still interests me".
So this is how in 2008 the Mugler brand launched Thierry Mugler Beauty, a high-end line of cosmetics, especially elitist perfumes showing once again extravagant and unique bottle shapes.
His first perfume, Angel, had actually already appeared in 1992, followed in 1996 by the male version, but the business was re-boosted actively when in 2005 the fragrance Alien was created and sold with great success.
Thierry Mugler's most iconic perfumes bottles
Despite retiring from his brand, Mugler made the exception to design under his name "House of Mugler" for the Met Gala in 2019 and Kim Kardashian as well.
He left us quite recently in January 2022, but the business of his Fashion House will keep running thanks to the current creative director Casey Cadwallader.
Sources: https://www.mugler.com
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Photo Thierry Mugler 1995 show:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/t-magazine/thierry-mugler-1995-show.html