[Entracte - Expo] Thierry Mugler, Couturissime, or the art of seducing with industrial materials

[Entracte - Expo] Thierry Mugler, Couturissime, or the art of seducing with industrial materials

The last issue

When the feathers and pearls rub shoulders with the rubber ... The Thierry Mugler, Couturissime exhibition settles in the Paris Decorative Arts Museum.No need to be a fashion lover to fall in love with this parade where fantastic creatures stroll with robots."I like extremes," sums up the French creator.

If you manage to make your way through the crowd, you will start the exhibition with its centerpiece: the famous chimera dress, presented as one of the most expensive outfits of haute couture.Here, we explore territories distant from industry and "fast fashion".Several thousand hours would have been necessary to compose this sheath by hand which reveals a kaleidoscope of butterfly wings, scales and diamonds...

Thierry Mugler was inspired by the Metropolis film to draw the armor of his "creatures-robots".Credit: Christophe Dellière

This "fantastic bestiary" is one of the major themes of the exhibition.But readers of the new factory may be more about the futuristic influences of Thierry Mugler, who has regularly worked with industrial designers.We discover the work of an aeronautical boilermaker, Jean-Pierre Delcros, through chrome bustiers and metal helmets.

[Entracte - Expo] Thierry Mugler, Couturissime, ou l’art de séduire avec les matériaux industriels

"Make people stronger"

Thierry Mugler also reveals an obsession with the automotive world.In 1989, the stylist presented a shiny collection inspired by American cars of the 1950s and more precisely of Harley J.Earl, the designer who imagined the finons of Cadillac Eldorado.The pieces are not lacking in humor: a belt is adorned with improbable exhaust pots while a bustier would house a functional cigarette lighter.

Later, the artist will make a rubber tailor imitating tire bearing strips.Is all this really tasteful?Thierry Mugler defends herself to dress a woman-object, claiming to be emancipation movements."I have always tried, in my work, to make people stronger in appearance than they really are," we can read in one of the rooms.

Note the pace of the handbag which seems straight carved in a tire.Credit: Patrice Stable

An agrifood aroma in the perfume

Behind this artistic momentum, there are also technical challenges.When Thierry Mugler embarks on perfumery, he works with industrial designer Jean-Jacques Urcun to draw a bottle resembling a star.According to legend, two years of research would have been necessary in the brush glassworks to manage to flow blue glass into such complex shapes.

Olfactive terminals allow you to feel the "Angel" scent and its ethyl-maltol molecule."Used only as flavoring in the food industry, ethyl-maltol is used for the first time in perfumery in Angel, which gives birth to a new category of so-called" gourmet "perfumes", tells us the Museum of Decorative Arts.This is one of the many earthy details of this exhibition that spans two floors.

Thierry Mugler exhibition, Couturissime, from September 30, 2021 to April 24, 2022 at the Paris Decorative Arts Museum.