Manfred Thierry Mugler

Explores Manfred Thierry Mugler’s spectacular archive of work, whose transformative designs and theatrical spectacles redefined the feminine form, championed diversity and left an enduring legacy across fashion, performance and popular culture

Manfred Thierry Mugler was a fashion designer who embodied the process of metamorphosis. Beyond the clothes he designed, his own body became a site for transformation and modification throughout his decades-long career. Early training as a ballet dancer and interior designer set the foundation for the imaginative theatrical worlds he produced that brought his designs to life. As a fashion designer, Mugler’s work epitomises the extravagance and spectacle of the late 1970s and 1980s, championing the body conscious power dressing the era was known for while infusing it with a subversive utopian splendour. The late designer constructed a phantasmagoric fashion house that moved across creative fields seamlessly to create an archive of work that is as eclectic as it is recognisable. This multiplicity of form includes a large archive of Thierry Mugler couture, ready-to-wear, perfumes, costume designs, film and photography. Mugler’s designs championed and subverted the feminine form, exaggerating and enhancing it in all its manifestations. The recognisable silhouettes such as angular shoulders and cinched waists were pushed to the extreme on his theatrical runway presentations. Dedicated collaborations with haute couture creatives, milliner Philip Treacy and corset maker Mr. Pearl, were integral in the creation of these body conscious figures. A visionary, Mugler was a champion for diversity on the runway, being one of the first to include drag artists and trans models to present his collections. Fashion became Mugler’s tool for expression and communication, a site for spectacle and metamorphosis. Arguably, Mugler’s twentieth anniversary show at the Cirque d’Hiver in 1995 was the pinnacle at which he entered the pantheon of fashion auteurs. The show was a kaleidoscope of interdisciplinary popular culture references and formed the apex of his spectacular career. The inclusion of cultural icons and celebrities adorned in his fantastical designs cemented Mugler’s oeuvre into history. This was the canonising of the Mugler aesthetic, one that transcends and transgresses boundaries of formal and social convention in turn influencing the generation of designers to emerge in his wake. Manfred Thierry Mugler encapsulates the notion of an auteur. This book explores his spectacular archive of work, focusing on some of the expansive collections and collaborations that have become synonymous with his creative identity.