Monsieur Mugler, popularly known as Manfred Thierry Mugler began his career as a ballet dancer who believed that hard work and discipline could take him anywhere. The visionary artist founded his couture brand in 1973, which became a fashion force in the Golden Age. His fascination for Art, Architecture, Dance, Theater, and Performance gravitated the designer toward Theatrical Garments. He was proud of combining Science with the Arts that still inspire people today.

The journey of Thierry Mugler

The idea of fashion for Thierry meant challenging the status quo and embracing both urban and hyperfeminine garments. Since the 80s swayed many women empowerment campaigns, the designer was always captivated by powerful heroines who symbolize Metamorphosis, Conquest, and the Future.
Mugler broke the boundaries not just in terms of spectacle and budget but also in casting. Leading supermodels of the time rubbed shoulders with musical legends, drag queens, and, inevitably, the former porn star Traci Lords, who walked the runway for an AIDS charity event in 1992. As part of his fashion shows, Thierry took great pleasure in displaying the naked bodies of women who embodied the seductiveness of his garments. However, behind the stubborn strive to undress women was also an idea of worshiping and celebrating the female body.

Despite all the popularity, the brand was relatively unknown between 2000 and 2015, as it was only recently that MUGLER returned to the limelight. Thierry Mugler left his luxury fashion house in 2003 to devote himself to directing and producing theatrical performances and art projects. Meanwhile, the fashion brand continued under its original name, MUGLER, once owned by the Clarins Group and now bought by L’Oréal Paris. Later, he also partnered with Cirque du Soleil to design for musicians.

However, through exhibitions and fashion icons, the beloved Thierry Mugler’s pieces are on the rise again.

In February 2019, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, MMFA, opened Couturissime, its first comprehensive retrospective of Thierry Mugler. The exhibition featured 150 Haute Couture garments from 1973 to 2014. It demonstrated the evolution of the brand and the fashion industry. Natalia Bondil, a curator of the MMFA, quoted: A woman through the eyes of Mugler is a dangerous, sexual, elegant creature, a cyborg, a superheroine, and an eternal metamorphosis. There is a whole universe of charm and seduction on the brink of reality.

Most iconic shows and collections from Thierry Mugler.

In the world of Thierry Mugler, high fashion was never trivial, and the word too much did not exist. Through his avant-garde, hour-long fashion shows, the couture of Thierry Mugler redefined elegance. In his enticing list of designs, several artists or Fashion Icons followed his sharp, wide-shouldered, body-conscious cuts, rhinestone sheath outfits, exquisite accessories, and structured bustiers made for Divas, Glamorous Stars, and Sun Goddesses. The runways displayed a unique performance by each model, a rare occurrence these days.

FALL-WINTER 1984-1985, FASHION BECAME A SHOW AS THE GATES OF PARADISE OPENED

In March 1984, Thierry Mugler made a splash by celebrating the 10th anniversary of his fashion house with the first-ever public runway show or performance in the West. It took place at the Zénith, a concert hall in the Villette neighborhood of Paris. With over 6,000 spectators, this highly colorful performance combined fashion with theatre and music as never before. The show featured 350 outfits that paraded down the runway; with their halos and gold wings, the angels, as Thierry referred to his models, pushed the wonder of the wonderland to its climax with the descent of Pat Cleveland, a Madonna-like figure draped in celestial and starry finery.

SPRING-SUMMER 1989, THIERRY MUGLER AND HIS MERMAIDS – LES ATLANTES

The aquatic world has inspired Mr. Mugler for many years. A woman-mermaid tale was the focus of the Les Atlantes collection. He brought sea nymphs and marine monsters to life with captivating storytelling that did not miss a single detail. There were sirens, sharks, and starfish on the catwalk of the underwater world. Thierry dared to push the limits of surrealism by ornamenting the classy suits with colorful gills and the skirts with fins on the back.

The show had several key pieces, including a leather coat with shark teeth studded across the back and a jacket with shining scales and sea shelves cupped on the breasts. There were transparent sheaths on radios and stretch silver jerseys, gowns with drapings, overcoats embellished with beads, and beautifully styled hair sculpted and fitted to perfection. It was the perfect illusion of sublime underwater goddesses. Jean-Jacques Urcun created every one of the sculptural masterpieces, and it was the beginning of a long and successful collaboration with Mugler.

SPRING-SUMMER 1992, LEATHER AND RUBBER – LES COW-BOYS

It was the first collection in which Thierry experimented with materials and created garments made of rubber, allowing French luxury brands to use cheap industrial materials in pret-a-porter collections for the first time. Mugler gave a new dimension to the cowboy image with a new meaning to Western culture and showed a modern cowgirl in urban society. In Les Cow-Boys, the Mugler woman revealed her inner strength and state of mind. Models walked down the runway wearing tightly fitted corseted biker jackets with fringes to the thigh boots attached to their waists, paired with feminine checked dresses. The guest star, transgender model Connie Fleming, wore the famous red cowboy suit. Mr. Pearl, a renowned corset-maker, made the corset for this suit, which began their collaboration.
At the same time, Mugler was also fascinated by automobiles and motorcycles. His clothing consistently showed his love for construction. Thierry designed the wardrobe for the famous George Michael video, Too Funky. The video represented his vision of heaven as the runway and hell as the backstage. Several supermodels, actresses, and performance artists starred, including Tyra Banks, Julie Newmar, and Lypsinka. Among the items in the video was the Motorcycle Corset made in collaboration with Mr. Pearl for the Spring Summer 1992 collection. In 2009, Beyonce wore the corset for the “I Am..” world tour. The corset depicts the superhuman concept of the brand.

FALL-WINTER 1995, THE 20th-ANNIVERSARY OF THIERRY MUGLER

One of the most breathtaking shows was the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the brand at the Cirque des Hiver in Paris. The theatrical extravaganza culminated in the extraordinary ambition and creative genius of Mr. Mugler. Over 50 dressers, 35 hairdressers, and 35 makeup artists worked on the show. The set was three-dimensional, and all the effects were worthy of the most lavish performance. World-class DJs performed the music. The show featured 75 supermodels and celebrities, from Jerry Hall to Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell to Tippi Hedren. These magnificent spectacles were a hymn to excess, with even the tiniest details meticulously planned. Upon entering the venue, spectators saw roses falling from the roof. In black vinyl costumes with curving hips, huge crinolines, tight catsuits, or courtly robes, dancers flown in from the US swayed and swirled to the tune of Brazilian rhythms. The atmosphere was said to be electric.

The 120 outfits presented in the atelier were a dazzling blend of beauty, elegance, and magic. They included the Fembot, a robot-looking suit developed in collaboration with Jean-Jacques Urcun. In the beginning, Mugler was only interested in making a metal bra. But eventually, he created an entire chrome jumpsuit reminiscent of the futuristic novel Metropolis. Other robot suits followed. The Venus or Shell Dress also appeared in the fall-winter collection. Cardi B wore it at the Grammys in 2019. The Venus dress derives inspiration from the famous Botticelli painting The Birth of Venus.

SPRING-SUMMER & FALL-WINTER 1997-1998, HAUTE COUTURE – LES INSECTES

The Mugler avant-garde show at the Hotel Ritz in Paris, themed Les Insectes. Thierry drew inspiration from the documentary film Microcosmos, the 1915 novel Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, and The Fly, a film by David Cronenberg. Les Insectes is considered one of the most accomplished works of Mugler’s career and has also re-invigorated French Haute Couture. There were 80 looks in the collection, oscillating between fantasy and reality. It included ant suits in black or orangey-red patent leather; tiered Barathea skirts; glossy bug-eye sunglasses; dragonfly gowns; an insect corset; a gown with a butterfly halo and a moth-style suit; satin chrysalis cocoon capes, and a painted latex carapace dress.

According to Mugler, his most striking, impressive, surprising, and successful creation was the Les Chimeres dress, which served as an expression of his poetry and a manifestation of his quest for perfection. The dress gave a wasp-waist effect; the sinuous movements of the dress, however, gave the illusion that the body was breaking free from its restraints and taking flight. An articulated gold body made of scales, feathers, and horsehair, embroidered with rhinestones, resembled the appearance of a mythical beast.

THIERRY MUGLER, FALL-WINTER 1999-2000, LES MEDUSES

Thierry produced a series of photographs for the 40th anniversary of Playboy that made him a leading artist in the field of sex couture. He transformed into Jacques Cousteau to create the Les Meduses collection. The designer was diving into the ocean’s depths to emerge with dresses inspired by the marine world. An illusion of Cnidaria tentacles, created by pleating organza with a special coating to produce a gelatinous-looking mass from which rubber inserts emerged to achieve that effect. Several looks featured coral-printed headpieces and latex masks.

FALL-WINTER 2001-2002, THE FEROCIOUS FAREWELL – BAPTISED LES FAUVES

The dawning of the 2000s brought new competition from fast fashion and global retailing, which led many fashion labels to rethink their business models. Due to the upheaval in buying and ever-growing demand, Thierry Mugler decided to end his fashion activities.
Baptized Les Fauves, he showed his last ready-to-wear collection in March 2001. It featured ferocious-looking models with wild hair, dressed in white, beige, brown, and black leather and adorned with leopard prints. The designer bid farewell to the fashion world with dignity, eyes firmly set on new horizons.