French fashion king Thierry Mugler passed away

Once again, the fashion world loses one of its most influential figures with the death of the French avant-garde couturier and costume designer. The eccentric French fashion designer passed away on Sunday. Mugler’s team has announced this via his Instagram account. He was 73 years old.

After three well-known faces from the fashion world disappeared last week (fashion journalist André Leon Talley, former top model Ghislaine Nuytten and actor and top model Gaspard Ulliel), Manfred Thierry Mugler passed away on Sunday. The sad news was shared on his Instagram last Sunday in a short statement. An all-black image reads, in French: ‘We are devastated to announce the passing of Mr Manfred Thierry Mugler on Sunday 23rd January 2022. May his soul rest in peace’.

Thierry Mugler was born in Strasbourg in December 1948. At the age of 14 he decided to become a dancer with the ballet company of the Opéra national du Rhin, and studied at the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. His creativity led to training as an interior designer, but in his early twenties he shifted his attention to designing clothes.

In 1967 he managed to sell his first designs to the French fashion houses Cacharel and Dorothee Bis. A period of freelancing in various European fashion capitals followed, after which Mugler settled on a houseboat in Amsterdam – some sources say he shared rooms with Sylvester, who would later have big hits with songs like ‘You Make Me Feel..Mighty Real’, and ‘Do You Wanna’. Funk’.

He moved to Paris at the age of 24 and created his own label ‘Café de Paris’ in 1973. A year later he founded the fashion house ‘Thierry Mugler’. His structured and refined silhouettes quickly became an established name.

Some people are exceptionally gifted. Fashion designer Thierry Mugler was one of them: each design was powerful, sharp, soft, outspoken, timeless and different.

In the 80s and 90s he became known in the haute couture world for his sexy style and the big names that walked around in his creations, such as Diana Ross, Lady Gaga, Liza Minelli, Beyoncé, Céline Dion, Svetlana Zakharova, Dua Lipa, but also the Cirque du Soleil were among his clientele. At the request of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, he completed his first haute couture collection in 1992.

Thierry Mugler was often in the company of colleagues Claude Montana, Jean Paul Gaultier and Azzedine Alaïa. His fashion shows were extravagant affairs held in arena-like settings and the associated collections had different themes. He was known for his sculpted designs with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Wearable art with a bombastic touch was his trademark.

I have always tried to take the body to the next level, to make people dream.

Early in his career, he designed signature looks for Michael Jackson, Madonna, Grace Jones, Diana Ross, and David Bowie; as well as outfits for George Michael’s music video ‘Too Funky’ and most notably Demi Moore’s dress from the 1993 film ‘Indecent Proposal’, once dubbed “the most famous dress of the 1990s”.

In addition, according to the authoritative fashion magazine WWD, Mugler was the first designer to force celebrities to showcase his creations at fashion shows. He was also one of the first designers to champion diversity in his runway shows, often addressing racism and ageism, and incorporating non-traditional models such as drag queens, porn stars and transgender women.

It wasn’t just the clothes that appealed to Mugler. Photography was more than a hobby, many of the photos used in campaigns were taken by the designer himself. In 1988 he publishes his first book as a photographer. He was also the director of several short films for Canal+ and several commercials for Gauloises in 1990. He not only designed the clothing, but he also directed the iconic video clip Too Funky in 1992. In 1994 he co-starred in the film ‘ Ready to Wear’ by Robert Altman.

Angel

Estelle Lefébure for Thierry Mugler Angel, 1992

In 1992, the fashion designer entered the beauty industry with the launch of the fashion house’s first fragrance. Mugler worked very closely with famed Jacques Courtin-Clarins (founder and head of the Clarins empire) and the perfumers to create a fragrance that reflected his approach to fashion design — unexpectedly, somewhere between the vulgar and the luxurious.

Created by Olivier Cresp en Yves de Chirin, Angel is a sugary-sexy blend of caramelized praline, chocolate and a patchouli accord. It would be part of a new fragrance family now known as ‘gourmand’.

Jerry Hall for Thierry Mugler Angel, 1995

Loyal fans of Angel include Diana Ross, Jerry Hall, Barbara Walters, Eva Mendes and Hilary Rodham Clinton. But the powerful fragrance, inspired by Mugler’s childhood memories of visiting the funfair in France, became the ultimate ‘party perfume’ of the 1990s.

The Angel flacon, a futuristic and technically sophisticated design in the shape of a faceted star, was designed by Thierry Mugler. Brosse Master Glassmakers manufactured the refillable flacons by hand using a special process.

Thierry Mugler Angel, 75ml, 1994 Limited Edition Etoile Couture Star, vervaardigd door de Brosse Master Glassmakers (privé-collectie).

One of the most important features was that the flacons were made of very clear glass without the use of lead, making the flacons recyclable, and the flacons were refillable ‘as in the past’. Concerned early on about their environmental impact, Mugler and Clarins later developed a refillable flacon that could be refilled at ‘La Source’- a bold move that was far ahead of its time. Limited ‘star’ flacons were released every year.

In 1996 Mugler Angel launched a male version called Angel Men or A*Men. This fragrance contains notes of caramel, coffee, vanilla, patchouli and honey. Nearly ten years after Angel, its 2005 counterpart – Alien – was released with much the same fanfare. Since then, several additional versions such as Angel Muse, Angel Nova, and Alien Goddess have hit the scene earlier this year.

Career switch

In 1997 he sold his fashion house to the Clarins Groupe. In 2002 he said goodbye to his Maison. When he went out of fashion, the designer went back to using his birth name, Manfred. Through bodybuilding and surgery, he changed his appearance, making him look like a homoerotic illustration of the French artist Tom of Finland. I have always found his transformation fascinating. In his interview with his good friend Tippi Hedren for Interview he talks about this, memorable!

The cheerful Frenchman, a lover of drama and theater, stopped as a designer in 2002 and said about it: “Fashion is beautiful, it is 3D art on a person. But it wasn’t enough, which is why I want to create in other ways”.

He did this, among other things, by focusing on making costumes and concepts for circus, cabaret and pop stars such as Lady Gaga, Cardi B and Beyoncé. At the Cirque du Soleil he directed the ‘Zumanity’ (zoo-manity) show (2003), for which he also designed the costumes. In 2008, he created the outfits for Beyoncé for her ‘Sasha Fierce-Tour’. For her ‘I Am… World Tour’ in 2009 he started working as an artistic consultant and designed both the clothing and the decor.

The return

In September 2010, Nicola Formichetti was announced as Creative Director of the Thierry Mugler brand. He changed the brand name to Mugler, removed the first name, and in January 2011, launched the revival of the brand’s menswear collection in collaboration with Romain Kremer.

After more than two years working as Mugler’s creative director, Formichetti announced in April 2013 that he and the fashion house were separating. Formichetti left Mugler to work for the Italian brand Diesel. This year Thierry Mugler returned as a creative advisor.

In 2016, Thierry Mugler created and directed the music video and staging for San Marino’s Eurovision Song Contest entry ‘I Didn’t Know’ performed by Turkish singer Serhat. In 2019 he created a ballet together with the choreographer Wayne McGregor. Mugler joined forces with the choreographer to direct something he had long dreamed of: a dance-fashion fusion presentation called ‘McGregor and Mugler at The London Coliseum’.

That same year, Mugler interrupted his designer retirement for Kim Kardashian, for whom he designed the dress she wore to the Met Gala. Inspired by Sophia Loren in the movie Boy on a Dolphin, Mugler imagined a ‘wet’ California girl; hence the name of the creation “wet couture dress”. The dress from which small drops of her body hung has now become an iconic design of his hand.

In October of the same year Mugler was a guest in Rotterdam for two days, where he exhibited his beautiful creations in the Kunsthal with the ‘Couturissime’ exhibition. The exhibition ‘Thierry Mugler: Couturissime’ in the Kunsthal brought together more than 150 outfits from the period between 1977 and 2014, most of which were exhibited for the first time. Wonderful to have seen some of his creations ‘live’ again…

I was working for Clarins in the 1990s. During the launch of Angel in the Netherlands I met Sonia Ziekek, International Training Manager for the Clarins Groupe. This very friendly and sympathetic woman brought me into contact with the right people at Mugler (thanxx always! x), so that I could work behind the scenes of various shows in Paris on the make-up. A very special time, where I met many special people (Tessa Rolink, Victoria… remember the time). So is Thierry Mugler himself, a very friendly and charismatic man. A beautiful person.

Thierry Mugler was a force of creativity and kindness. I was shocked to hear of Manfred Thierry Mugler’s passing. A man with the astonishing vision, who set the tone of the times like no other. I am honored to have had the opportunity to work for you.

Jean Amr, owner Yakymour, former makeup artist

According to his agent Jean-Baptiste Rougeot, Mugler died a sudden, natural death. According to Rougeot, the couturier still had many plans and would announce new collaborations at the beginning of this week.

Our thoughts are with his family, his loved ones and all the people who supported him in his revolutionary adventure.

If someone is going to spend a weekend in Paris soon, an exhibition of his designs is mind blowing.

Fashion Photographer and Celebrity Glamourist Francesco Scavullo

Fashion and celebrity photographer Francesco Scavullo is most known for his portraits of pop culture icons like Donna Summer, Madonna, Andy Warhol, Kate Moss, Mick Jagger and others. Scavullo often courted controversy as seen in his photographs of a young Brooke Shields or a nude Burt Reynolds. His work amped the sensuality of fashion photography, and over the course of Scavullo’s thirty-year relationship with ‘Cosmopolitan’ magazine, he created the hyper-sexual ‘Cosmo girl’ phenomenon.

Scavullo was born on January 16, 1921, in Staten Island but spent his childhood in Manhattan after his father bought a supper club. He spent much of younger years obsessing over fashion on Fifth Avenue in the pages of fashion magazines. He used his father’s camera to photograph his sisters, often transforming them into models through the glamorous style of Hollywood.

Jerry Hall by Francesco Scavullo

As a teen, Scavullo landed his professional job photographing cruise ship travellers, who happened to include movie star Carmen Miranda. He next helped photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe in lighting Lauren Bacall’s first ever photo shoot, which made the cover for ‘Harper’s Bazaar’ in 1943.

In 1945, Scavullo worked in a studio producing fashion catalogues but soon moved onto Vogue. He worked under iconic fashion photographers Cecil Beaton and John Rawlings. As Horst P. Horst’s assistant, Scavullo closely studied the master photographer’s signature lighting techniques. Working as Horst P. Horst’s assistant for three years, Scavullo had his own photography studio by 1948.

Lena Horn by Francesco Scavullo

Under the guidance of Babs Simpson, editor of Vogue from 1947 to 1972, Scavullo landed a contract with ‘Seventeen’ magazine in 1948. As a young photographer, he learned to work with the industry’s notoriously temperamental talent.  As he once explained, “I was a little kid in jeans with curly hair”. After model Meg Mundy refused to work with him, “I realised there are two kinds of models. Pretty nice models and bitchy pretty models”.

In 1965, editor Helen Gurley Brown brought Scavullo to ‘Cosmopolitan’, where he shot the magazine’s covers for 30 years. The ‘Cosmo girl’ emerged through his control over choosing models and styling. Scavullo’s 1969 photograph of singer Janis Joplin with a cigarette in her hand was exhibited at theAmon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. The museum poster refers to Joplin, who died in 1970, as having a ‘free-spirited fervor of the counterculture revolution’.

Burt Reynolds for Cosmopolitan

Shot in the early 1970s Scavullo work with Brooke Shields as a child, that some considered overly sexual, and his now iconic nude centrefold of Burt Reynolds for the ‘Cosmopolitan’ magazine rank as some of the photographer’s more controversial work. Beyond the pages of Cosmopolitan, Scavullo worked with many celebrities and high-profile artists. He collaborated often with Barbra Streisand and Cher. He also helped launch the career of actress and model Farrah Fawcett.

Burt Reynolds – the hairychested actor who starred in such classics as ‘Deliverance’ and ‘Smokey and theBandit’ – became an avatar for a very virile, very louche brand of ’70s masculinity when he became the first man ever to be photographed naked for a major magazine. The image ran in the April 1972 issue of ‘Cosmopolitan’, and it’s been widely imitated – and lampooned – ever since.

During these years, he also contributed to the rise of Gia Carangi, regarded by many as fashion’s first super model. He befriended the young teenager from Philadelphia, future supermodel whose career he was largely responsible for launching. When Carangi’s heroin addiction made it impossible for her to find work later, Scavullo continued to employ and support her until her eventual death from complications of AIDS.

Donna Summer, Once Upon A Time

Scavullo created shots for various movie posters, album covers and Broadway shows, including one for ‘A Star is Born’ (1976, featuring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson), Judy Collins ‘Hard Times for Lovers’, a portrait of Julie Andrews for Black Edwards ‘Victor Victoria’ and photos of Donna Summer for her now iconic double-albums ‘Once Upon A Time’ and ‘Live and More’, for the cover of her smash-hit with Barbra Streisand ‘No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)’ and later ‘Summer: The Donna Summer Musical. In 1981, Scavullo was commissioned by Mikhail Baryshnikov to photograph the dancers of the American Ballet Theatre, which formed the basis of an exhibition that was later shown in a nationwide tour.

Something in my head gets turned on by seeing a woman’s looks really come together with the right makeup, the right hair style, the right clothes. It’s exciting to see a woman metamorphosed into something extraordinary.

Francesco Scavullo

He also shot Cher and Diana for their album covers. Through the 1980s Scavullo photographed British band Duran Duran, with his work featured on various releases including the cover of ‘The Wild Boys’ single. He also appeared in the band’s tour documentary ‘Sing Blue Silver’. Other famous names Scavullo had in front of his lens are Sophia Loren, Lena Horn, Liza Minelli, Michael Jackson, Beverly Johnson, Jerry Hall, Biance Jagger, Grace Jones, and Divine, to name just a few.

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Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand ‘No More Tears’ (Enough Is Enough)

Sean M. Byrne started assisting Scavullo’s shoots in 1972. The two became eventually became life partners. During these years, Scavullo suffered from mental breakdowns. When Scavullo was finally diagnosed as manic depressive in the 1980s, he advocated for people to learn more about the condition and its treatment.

Through the course of his career, Scavullo shot covers for Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, Interview and Rollingstone. He published six books: Scavullo on Beauty (1976), Scavullo on Men (1977), Scavullo Women (1982), Scavullo: Francesco Scavullo Photographs 1948-1984 (1984), Scavullo: Photographs 50 Years (1997), and Scavullo Nudes (2000).

On January 6, 2004, Francesco Scavullo died of heart failure. Working until the end of his life, he passed on the way to a photo shoot with CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper. He was survived by Byrne, his partner for 32 years.

Today, Scavullo’s works are held in the collections of the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, among others.  

Marisa Berenson, Jerry Hall and Pat Cleveland for MAC’s New Fall Makeup Collection

Supermodels Marisa Berenson, Jerry Hall, and Pat Cleveland recently reconvened, not in some type of seventies showdown, but in celebration of MAC Cosmetics upcoming makeup collection, which pays homage to fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez. Known as ‘Antonio’s Girls’, the three women were often painted by the celebrated artist for work featured in Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vogue during the disco era. Lopez is even credited with discovering Hall…..

His artwork influenced the entire fashion industry, and cemented ’60s, ’70s and most notably the ’80s style in our minds. In honor of his memory and his stamp on the world, MAC will translate some of Lopez’s iconic works into a limited edition collection.

The collection will include two face palettes centered on rich shades of pink and coral. The Antonio Lopez Coral Face Palette includes the gold and pink pearlized iridescent aptly named ‘Star’; a coral blush ‘Passion for Color’; and ‘Smooth Harmony’, a mid-level golden bronze powder. As for The Antonio Lopez Pink Face Palette, a bronze iridescent powder, ‘Belighful; a blue-based blush named ‘Pure Femininity’; and ‘Peaceful’ a peach powder.

There was a magic to his world and a time in history that hasn’t been recaptured; I think people are lusting after that glamour, which is difficult to come by today.

To update the look, the makeup powerhouse has selected six of his drawings and emblazoned them on lip, eye, and face palettes, plus makeup bags and accessories. “Our collection with Antonio Lopez is symbolic of a time when indulgence was at its peak,” explains James Gager, creative director of MAC Cosmetics. It all drops in September, but click ahead for a sneak peek.

MAC Antonio Lopez 3/Lips ($27.50)

MAC Antonio Lopez 3/Lips

A trio of complementary lip shades allows you to dabble in the art of mixing and matching (from left: nude, fuchsia, and red). Mini brush comes included.

MAC Antonio Lopez Face ($46)

MAC Antonio Lopez Face

These triple-tiered palettes are meant for bronzing, blushing, and highlighting for both cool (pink) and warm (coral) skin tones.

MAC Antonio Lopez 6 Eyes ($43.50)

MAC Antonio Lopez 6 Eyes

The brand knows its way around a color wheel, as evidenced by these coordinating six-color shadow sets.

MAC Antonio Lopez Makeup Bags and Pocket Mirror 

MAC Antonio Lopez Two-Way Pocket Mirror

Pack all of your goodies into this whimsical pouch ($40) or opt for a larger tote bag ($55) with the same image. Then check your new face in a two-way pocket mirror ($25) that will also be offered as a part of the collection.