Thierry Mugler died at 73: a total work of art

Created: 2022-01-24 15:29

By: Katja Kraft

His fashion came from the heart: Thierry Mugler (1948-2023) during his visit to Munich in October 2020. © Astrid Schmidhuber

Thierry Mugler is dead. He was a fashion designer, photographer and total work of art.

The show dedicated to him in the Kunsthalle Munich was his unforgettable farewell.

An obituary.

There's this spectacular photo of model Claude Heidemeyer on the ledge of a New York skyscraper.

It lies there, unsecured.

But even more spectacular is how the recording was made.

Thierry Mugler, designer, photographer, polymath, hung out the window a few floors up.

He had asked his skeptical assistants to push a ladder out the window and hold on tight.

He himself crawled out into the open with the camera.

And took his pictures from a dizzying height.

Art must be a hell of a drug.

Thierry Mugler was also a photographic artist.

In the 1980s he managed to take this picture with model Claude Heidemeyer in New York.

© Thierry Mugler

Of course, we do not know which substances were still circulating in Thierry Mugler's blood at that moment, sometime in the 1980s. But the drug that kicked him the most, that drove him to peak performance, it was art. Thierry Mugler, who himself was a total work of art, died on Sunday. Not only does the fashion world lose one of its most creative people with him.

Above all, one who didn't care who might dislike his sometimes extremely revealing, provocative, always extravagant creations.

And if someone came up with the idea that he made sexist fashion or portrayed women in his photos as purely sex objects, Mugler would simply up the ante in a very cool way.

What all the critics misunderstood is that this man was actually a feminist.

For him, women were superheroes.

He created the right outfit for her.

To die for.

Stars like Beyoncé appreciated that.

The artist sewed plastic icicles onto a glittery touch of nothing for them – elegant and disarming at the same time.

Thierry Mugler celebrated femininity with his fashion creations.

©Oliver Bodmer

But not only women, for Mugler the human being as such was a "fragile, beautiful creature". And when you met him, for example during his visit to Munich in October 2020, when he announced that the extremely successful show dedicated to him in the Munich Kunsthalle would be extended, a man sat across from you in conversation who shared this fragile, but also contained beauty itself. Despite massive bodybuilding and many a disguised "cosmetic" operation: This giant seemed childish. You could see the once so delicate dancer in him. Yes, at the age of 14 he, who was born in Strasbourg on December 21, 1948, had completed ballet training in Paris. At the same time, he began to design clothes. Before studying costume design. Perhaps to tailor armor for himself against the world.

Surrounded by his models: Thierry Mugler after the presentation of his fall/winter 2001 collection in Paris.

© Remy De La Mauviniere

The eighties were his golden years.

The wild, unconventional nature of his company, Thierry Mugler, founded in 1974, fit the times.

Top models loved the creations with huge shoulder pads, narrow waists and deep necklines.

His women's perfume "Angel", launched in 1992, is said to have outsold Chanel's legendary N°5 in 1998.

Mugler put his scent mark everywhere.

Thierry Mugler was a guest judge on "Germany's next top model".

In the 1990s things became quieter around him, and in 1997 the Clarins group took over the trademark rights.

In 2002, Mugler went out of business.

But the pop-up came back.

Only last year Mugler appeared as a guest judge in the casting show "Germany's next top model".

Really now, with this smooth-ironed program?, one asked the extremely open-hearted designer.

But he replied: "Why not?" Heidi Klum is also a woman who confidently goes her own way.

Sometimes Klum did this in his clothes.

You don't have to be a fan of hers to acknowledge: In those moments, she looked even more radiant.

This is the consolation at the news of his death: Thierry Mugler's works remain.

As dazzling inspiration to dare.

Stardust sparkling, extraordinary - and beautiful.

Extravagance from head to toe was the hallmark of Thierry Mugler's creations.

©Oliver Bodmer