The brilliant work of Thierry [Manfred] Mugler, who shook up 80s fashion, is on display at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs until April. teh exhibit provides the opportunity to dive back into the multicolored dreams of the mad genius of clothing. See his dragonfly bustiers mixed with Harley handlebars and sirens even more fabulous than those of children's tales. Take the time to explore the past, present, and future, with one of the most creative minds of his time.
Dear Manfred, I believe you don't like the word retrospective or the word exhibition.
I prefer the idea of an opera in nine acts.
What scares you about the term retrospective?
It doesn't scare me, it's annoying! Within retrospective, there is “retro”: an idea that is a bit too chronological. Chronology means nothing to my work. Because everything is in everything: it is the mixture that stimulates me. So let's move on! Everything needs a fresh eye.
Even from a very young age, you made your own clothes…
Not just my clothes! Theater sets too, and a thousand costumes for my imaginary heroines – whose destinies I wrote, and the scripts too!
If you hadn't been an artist, what "normal" profession could you have practiced?
Oh that! I would have been a tramp. Or I would have shown my ass on the beaches in Tahiti, I don't know... Anyway, I would have been unable to do anything else. Besides, I couldn't go to school. I stayed in high school for a month. I was unable to concentrate. I especially couldn't respect badly dressed teachers.
Are you manage to listen to badly dressed people now?
Today, I have other escapes! I create, and I have fun. Well, the only thing I remember from high school is the roof of Notre-Dame de Strasbourg cathedral, which I devoured with my eyes from the classroom. A gothic cathedral… Not just a little bit gothic, but gothic TO THE CORE! [Laughs.] Much more exhilarating than its Parisian cousin, everything is finer and more perilous. The turrets and watchtowers float level with the void! It's off-limits now, but when I was a child I spent my life climbing up there. It's so impressive. The Verdi bronze statuary, with its dragons, its virgins, its angel Gabriel, also fascinated me. Not to mention the singing of the nuns, which rose up in the endless heights of the building: it was a sublime world. So obviously, the high school desks did not hold up to this dream for long.
The nuns wear special attire…
Absolutely. That was my first shock at the power of clothing: the nun's attire.
And when you weren't climbing the cathedral, what were you doing?
I would make sure that I arrived five minutes late at school, so the main door would be closed, and I took the opportunity to hang out at the cinema at the station and see some peplums.
You could almost establish a direct link between the emotions of your childhood and everything that followed!
But yes, I have spent my life looking in the world and in my work for these symbolic representations.
Have you ever had psychoanalysis?
No, but I learned to examine myself through yoga, and I devoted fifteen years to psychosynthesis, which makes the link between body, memory, and soul. When I arrived, I was told: “If you want to live a full life, you have to empty your baggage first. Drop everything. If it's good, it'll come back to you."
Can we drop everything?
I hope so - because I had a very troubled childhood, difficult to live with mentally.
Did you suffer from an “Alsacienne” lack of affection - cold and Protestant parents?
Not at all. My father was very international, I was almost raised in San Francisco. As for my mother, she was a superstar, super glamorous, the opposite of the typical Alsacienne. Only my parents, as gifted as they were, were a rather chaotic couple - and locked in their passion. They had no place in their lives for children.
Back to our topic: where does the title of the exhibition, “Couturissime” come from?
The title I first thought of, Beyond Couture, was already taken. So I thought about something else: Couturissime seemed to me both more universal and funnier!
In Couturissime, there is also a notion of excess...
The word excess has stuck with me for ages. I just want to pay tribute to the world we live in, which is much more excessive than all my creations put together. So I prefer the words refinement, amazement, shock, dream.
Your work, precisely, is inspired by words, and poetry. From Kafka's "Metamorphosis" to Fitzgerald's "Gatsby", via the golden age of Hollywood, it seems that everything about you stems from imagination without borders, blending literature and cinema.
Absolutely. All of the arts are nourished by the same inspiration. The differences are technical, but fashion, for me, remains apart.
In what sense?
Because it is the only art which is both in 3D, in movement, and which sticks to the skin: I mean, which animalistically accompanies the life of the person permanently.
The word “animal” often comes up in your words. Are humans animals?
Naturally. Sublime, thinking animals - which isn't always good news! But aesthetically, on par with a panther, I'm willing to name Ava Gardner the most beautiful animal on earth.
Your exhibition is divided between two poles: that of the bestiary and that of the robots. How can we love robots and nature at the same time, and so much?
Have you ever observed an insect, how robotic is it? The thorax, worthy of a bustier, the abdomen? What is prodigious in nature is that everything exists! Neon? You have the fireflies. Fluorescent? You have the birds of paradise. It's amazing, nature.
Nature is tough though: I had interviewed Carla Bruni for Vogue, who told me, “There are fashion designers who see women as beautiful flowers that they want to put in a vase – and that vase is not always comfortable.”
We demand comfort, but what about confidence? Because clothes can also self-correct you, help you find the ideal posture. Some of my corsets are very structured, OK, even restrictive, but it offers power, an uprightness that opens the mind. I have no attraction to slackness.
When you draw, do you know how it happens, deep inside? Where does the idea come from, so that the cut comes to life?
The idea of the garment is one question, and the cut is another. But above all, I draw the human body. A man or a woman, the points of the arms, the shoulders… Then I look for the best way to give life to a fantasy.
Do you like to draw?
It's primordial. Even if it is a mixture of pleasure and torture.
Torture, really?
But yes! You spend hours sitting, your body motionless, your hands obsessed with a pencil and an eraser. drawing is very physical.
Among the hundreds of models in the exhibition, which are your favorites?
The most minimalist are my favorites. And the real finds – like the dresses designed for my Zenith, the first paid fashion show in a rock concert style. There were nude mermaid dresses in flesh-beige silk jersey, with baroque elements in gold plissé-lamé, it said so much, in a very simple way. The futuristic unisex jumpsuits too, at the time of the Atlantean show. And some technical prowess: my dresses draped in horsehair, or those in rubber lace…
“Couturissime” does not forget to showcase the Mugler photographer: in your images, bodies and decorations merge. What new emotion did this art give you?
It brought me a very great joy linked to travel since I went in search of the most extraordinary panoramas on the planet. And I discovered crazy places, from the dunes of the Sahara to the glass roof of the Grand Palace, passing through Soviet monuments, popular China or, in another style, the tropical minimalist architecture of Luis Barragán, unforgettable.
Does Photography prove to be inseparable for you from a place?
Absolutely. Because I tried to fix scenes that I had always had in mind. However, it is the meeting of the ultimate decor that makes this poetic point of view possible. When you arrive on the roof of the Opéra Garnier, you see these horses galloping in the sky and you imagine the dress that goes with it, what an emotion! Then there is an Arsène Lupin side, a clandestine feeling... But this miracle is based on ab-so-lute precision: you shift the lens by a millimeter, we see the metro passing by, the cows in the meadows, the purity flies away.
You could have erased the cows in Photoshop…
Never! In my photos there is no trickery, no editing. It is as it is. And that's what makes it so magical, the quest for the perfect moment, the unique setting.
Helmut Newton, with whom you collaborated, did he share this vision?
Helmut was the god of the angle. You put it in any room, any office, it always found an angle of total accuracy, to die for...
Your “corner god” claimed to have two enemies: art and good taste.
This sentence is very catchy, but it is false: Helmut had very good taste! From the outside, he looked like a pixie ready to do something silly, but his sense of frame and light was just divine.
You can sense a strong capacity for admiration. Have you ever been a "fan"?
Hey hey, yeah... I've told a few people that I love them - but by ear.
Who is that?
Madam Pompidou. Edith Head, the great Hollywood costume designer. And Billy Wilder, who met in Los Angeles – with Newton by the way. I got down on my knees in front of him, I said, "I'm sorry, but I have to do this!" He laughed, and we chatted about Berlin, from his old address where there is now a very good ice cream parlor…
You are at the origin of a trend that has revolutionized the perfume industry: the so-called “gourmand” fragrances. This part of your creativity also has its place in the exhibition.
Yes, because from the name Angel to the star bottle, from the composition of the formula to the campaign photos, to the typography, everything came out of a single gesture. This openness allows me to see perfume as a real part of my job.
Do you happen to walk around and come across someone wearing your perfume?
All the time. And it's very touching, this secret link in my time...
In recent years, there has been a lot of interest in queer, non-binary identities. As early as 1979, you showed men and women in similar uniforms – but your fashion was often based on hyper-masculinity and hyper-femininity, right?
Certainly, but I also filled my shows with non-gendered, androgynous characters… And showed supermasculine women, adorned with fake mustaches! Well, afterwards, teenagers have always wondered about their identity, refusing to be defined by society. So it's good that today they have the means to question themselves loud and clear and that we leave them alone. Then when girls and boys dress the same way, ultimately what is highlighted is the unique personality of each.
Another recent upheaval, the feminist wave initiated by #Metoo. Were you expecting it?
At last! Because all that, we have always known… As for me, I have constantly worked to ensure that women are more respected, that they feel powerful. Linda Nochlin, the great art historian and figure of feminism, said that my models went from “woman as object” to “woman as subjects”! It was a nice formula.
Despite everything, has today's society become more puritanical than in the 1980s?
Yes and no. There is a real tendency of morality to the consequence of a globalization where everything is on the same level, not to mention the hysteria of certain media, which lay polemics to fill the void. On the other hand, we've never gone this far in showbiz. Look at Cardi B: Ten years ago you didn't see this.
You are referred to as the designer “who brought science into fashion”. How do you see 21st century clothing?
Both more efficient and more personal. The cuts will adapt to your morphology, react directly to your body - or even rehabilitate it. At the same time, there will be a return to traditional techniques, thanks to the deployment of microcredit. We will have access, by paying them correctly, to Peruvian craftsmen who perpetuate ancestral gestures, so a mixture of human genius and the great sophistication of high-tech.
You know that if you use Peruvian artisans, you could be accused of “cultural appropriation”…
This concept is extremely stupid. Culture has always circulated from one continent to another. A young white American girl who wears a Chinese-patterned dress for her prom will be accused of cultural appropriation, without thinking of the many Chinese women who come to be photographed in white lace dresses on the Alexandre III bridge. Yet it is the same thing. So these controversies are minor, and will die out.
Looking back, have you ever had the feeling of being misunderstood?
Yes. I suffered a lot from it, as a kid and teenager. Already I was too creative. Ultimately, however, I have always wanted to make the world beautiful.
Beauty? Is this the word, coming out of “Couturissime”, that your audience should have in mind?
Beauty, of course - but first JOY. Because life is worth living.
Thierry Mugler, Couturissime, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, until April 24 2022, madparis.fr
Translation by Anissa Agrama
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