Thierry Mugler, Couturissime: An unmissable retrospective in Paris

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jan 24, 2022

In homage to Thierry Mugler, who died on Sunday at the age of 73, FashionNetwork.com revisits this article on the exhibition "Thierry Mugler: Couturissime," originally published in July 2021.

Entitled Thierry Mugler: Couturissime, the exhibition is designed to pay homage to a unique multidisciplinary artist, whose ideas influenced fashion, photography, video music culture, perfumery and gay rights.
 
Created not as classic retrospective, Thierry Mugler: Couturissime will also highlight the historic collaborations between Thierry Mugler and his creative alter-ego Manfred.  Scheduled to open on September 30, 2021 until April
 24, 2022, the exhibition was initiated, produced and circulated by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) in 2019. 

Thierry Mugler: Couturissime will be staged inside the newly renovated Christine and Stephen A. Schwarzman Fashion Galleries of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. 
 
From the 1970s until 2002 when Mugler retired as an active runway designer, the creator established himself as one of the most daring and innovative couturiersof his time, creating a dramatic power-shouldered look that defined the silhouette of the '80s.
 
He was one of the first European designers to appreciate the power and reach of MTV culture. And his collaboration with George Michael in the 1992 video Too Funky, featuring only Mugler clothes, is a defining moment in establishing couture as a global phenomena and not just a pampered clothing cult reserved to a few thousand billionaires' wives. While the metallic robot leotard with rear-view mirrors he designed for Emma Sjoberg remains an iconic fashion image. His path-breaking inclusion of transgender models in his legendary 1990s shows in Paris also played a not-insignificant role in the growing acceptance of non-binary sexual diversity.
 
The exhibition – to be displayed over two floors - also marks the return of Mugler to Paris, where his fame began nearly five decades ago. 

From ready-to-wear and haute couture silhouettes to stage costumes, photographs and unpublished archives dating from 1973 to 2014, Thierry Mugler: Couturissime will showcase the universe of this creator and
 his multiple collaborations in the fields of entertainment, music and cinema. 
 
Curated by Thierry-Maxime Loriot, 
a collective scenography with the 
MMFA will include digital performances
by entertainment and audiovisual professionals. 
 
One room will be dedicated to the photography, since Mugler, 
in 1976, became one of the first designers to begin photographing his campaigns. Shooting his “Glamazons” like Jerry 
Hall or Iman, in exotic locations such as Greenland; Moscow’s Seven Sisters skyscrapers; the Sahara Desert, and the rooftop of the Paris Opera House.