Remembering Thierry Mugler

The fashion community lost an icon on January 23, 2022. Thierry Mugler died at the age of 73 and left a huge legacy on the fashion industry. Manfred Thierry Mugler was born in France in 1948, from his father, a doctor, and his mother being described as one of the most elegant women in the town. Growing up he participated in ballet at the Opera National du Rhin and frequently liked to go to the cinema. At the start of his career he started his own label in 1973, Cafe de Paris. The ready-to-wear label was inspired by architectural lines which contrasted the folkloric fashions.

“I wanted to do this very pure, Parisian silhouette: the little black suit, the trenchcoat, the black dress, the siren dress. It was all about a very precise, streamlined silhouette, very strongly influenced by dance.”

Mugler's designs were often inspired by his history with dance, and were known for being transformative and transporting. His materiality was important because they had not often been used in the fashion world. Materials included latex, rubber, vinyl, and metal. Non Traditional fabrications and formats, such as moulding women into robots and insects made him different from the other designers of the time. His runways and shows also spread him apart from the rest. They embodied the theatrical nature he enjoyed, a spectacle, and often included some of the biggest supermodels of the era, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell to name a few.

“A complete perfectionist, you couldn’t be one centimeter off.”

And others close to him describe his legacy.

“funny, passionate, crazy at times” and “a genius jack-of-all-trades, an artist for whom measurement was not part of his vocabulary.”

In light of all his greatness, Thierry Mugler was not always loved by fashion critiques. People often spoke on how he fetishes the female body, though he argued the opposite. Many believe he was misunderstood for his time and that his work proved his innovation in the avant garde. His fashion was timeless and pulled away from the traditional fashion timeline.

In 2002 he retired from the runway, which happened shortly after Clarins acquired his company in 1997 and they shut down his fashion division. Mugler was greatly affected by the change in the fashion industry and its obsession with money and power and became disinterested. He continued in other ways such as fragrances and designing costumes for Beyonce and Cirque du Soleil. Continuing in his retirement era, he embodied the name of Manfred and made the transition to his bodybuilding and plastic surgery era. His goal of this era was to look like a sculptured Arno Breker.

Thierry Mugler's legacy will live on through the designs he made and the people he influenced.

“His groundbreaking sculptural designs, unparalleled garment construction and use of innovative materials will be inspiring generations of designers to come.”