Exhibition Review: Thierry Mugler: Couturissime
Kunsthal Rotterdam, the Netherlands, October 13, 2019 - March 8, 2020
Installation shot, Act V: Futuristic & Fembot Couture, 2019 design by German visual artist Philipp Fürhofer, Kunsthal Rotterdam, foto Marco De Swart
At the 2019 Grammy Awards, American rapper Cardi B. wore a pink duchess satin and black velvet “Venus” dress with an embellished bodysuit adorned with Swarovski crystals. It was a 20-year-old couture creation by fashion designer Thierry Mugler. Cardi B is one of numerous artists who have relied upon Mugler’s archive of iconic pieces to make glamorous appearances at events and performances, from Beyoncé, to Rihanna, to Katy Perry. The first famous personality to prominently utilize his vintage looks was Lady Gaga, who opted for Mugler in the music video Telephone in 2010: combining prêt-à-porter pieces from the 1995 collection (a suit, a jacket, and a hat), she put the spotlight back on the recognizable “square shoulder look” that represented a trademark for the designer.
Long before this vintage renaissance, Thierry Mugler was one of the protagonists of the reinvention of the modern silhouette and a key figure in French fashion history. From his beginnings in the 1970s, to his official recognition by the exclusive and conservative Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in the 1990s, to his last collection, Les Fauves (2001), Mugler deployed his avant-garde vision while pursuing women’s emancipation through the affirmation of a reshaped body resistant to social affronts. With his language of tiny corseted waists, large shoulders, and emphasized bust and hips, he telegraphed power, presence, and control —characteristics inspired by his muse, the supermodel Jerry Hall.
The Kunsthal Rotterdam is the first European institution to host a major retrospective dedicated to Mugler’s work, following the initiative of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, who inaugurated this challenging retrospective of the singular and visionary artist. The exhibit seduces with more than one hundred fifty pieces created between 1977 and 2014; archival photos by Guy Bourdin, Karl Lagerfeld, David LaChapelle, and Helmut Newton; and many never-before seen accessories and stage costumes, video clips, and original sketches restored by Maison Mugler and Clarins Group, the French family company that supported the creator beginning in the 1990s.
Installation shot, Act IV: The Photographer’s Eye, 2019 Kunsthal Rotterdam, foto Marco De Swart
Curated by Thierry-Maxime Loriot under the direction of Nathalie Bondil from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Thierry Mugler: Couturissime brings together disparate pieces in a still-coherent show unified by music, light, and playful effects created especially by studio Rodeo FX for the event, all within immersive galleries designed by artists such as Michel Lemieux and Philipp Fürhofer. The mannequins were custom-made by Dutch firm Hans Boodt, who wanted to celebrate the values of innovation and rebelliousness belonging to Mugler.
These polyhedric contributions of technical experts and artists reflect the vision of the designer, whose aim was to fascinate spectators through art and spectacle. There’s a clear parallel between the construction of the exhibition and its protagonist, whose overall perfectionism is palpable and legible in every detail. It is a show that doesn’t want to be a premature artistic funeral, nor mere commercial celebration of interests magnified by sponsors and media attention. Instead, it is a lively demonstration of creativity, a combination of the investigation of the thought behind a long career, and of the integration of Mugler’s work with other contemporary disciplines. From character to person, Mugler lets spectators enter his reality.
The agreement to have his works showcased in a museum environment is also in line with Mugler’s choices to escape traditional and old-fashioned spaces dedicated to fashion presentations; he often selected entertainment venues that were considered unusual for fashion, like the Zénith arena or Cirque d’Hiver in Paris.
“Originally, Mugler thought he might become a ballet dancer, and the universe of dance remained in his DNA. He turned this passion into designing clothes, reading them as artificial means of adornment to glorify the body.”
The relationship to a space has always been fundamental to Mugler’s career, together with the selection of models for their capability to create a vital show. The designer wanted to tell stories through clothes and needed the right actors to wear them. His spectacles were in fact musical comedies, scenes from comics, Hollywood movies, glamorous cabaret reviews, and were real brand statements. This exhibition is likewise an opera, divided by theme and organized in six “acts”: Macbeth & the Scottish Lady, Stars & Sparkles, Belle de Jour & Belle de Nuit, The Photographer’s Eye, Metamorphosis, and Futuristic & Fembot Couture.
Helmut Newton, Jerry Hall and Thierry Mugler, Paris, 1996. Photo: © The Helmut Newton Estate.
Originally, Mugler thought he might become a ballet dancer, and the universe of dance remained in his DNA. He turned this passion into designing clothes, reading them as artificial means of adornment to glorify the body: he transmitted the language of ballet into fashion, with its vital energy, rhythm, and perseverance. This rigor is well represented in all of his creations with shapes and geometry, and spectators can admire it up close in its meticulous tailoring. His attention to the construction process is revealed in his garments, all of which share a rigid, but hyper-feminized, architectural structure, that is dramatically explored at the Kunsthal, piece after piece.
Mugler’s idealized figures are extravagant, sexy, and sometimes irreverent; his women are self-confident, free, and have fun. When he started in the mid-70s, women were in a vortex of social change, which showed in their closets. Mugler’s reimagining of the ambitious, successful female figure reflected this. He always made his women sexual subjects, not objects for someone else’s pleasure, by an erotic maximization of their image, mixing humour and sensuality. In the context of contemporary culture, amid problems of stress, over stimulation, and personal and social discontents, Mugler’s couture can be read as an expression of body consciousness, awareness, and self-cultivation. Powerful women choose him to transmit a message of strength.
Beyond the silhouettes, the designer’s virtuosity is also illustrated in the exhibition by the use of unconventional materials, such as rubber, chrome, resin, faux fur, and plexiglass adapted and fitted to the curves of the body. Exploring during the ‘80s and 90’s, Mugler also experimented with unusual tools and futuristic cuts, creating a high-tech version of couture. His inspiration came from the most disparate fields, from machinery and cars to Far West cavaliers, to the gynoid robots of the Fall/Winter 1995-1996 couture collection, to the actual melding between human beings and nature in the Spring/Summer 1997 collection, where women were literally fused with insects. There’s a continuous attempt to reshape nature in Mugler’s work, evoking the idea of a metamorphosis for a woman who is “the most beautiful animal on Earth.”
