Thierry Mugler, this house s mythmaking founder, has long since left the building and settled into a comfortable second act, designing wardrobes for the greatest show on earth. That would be Beyoncé s world tour. A diva worthy of the diva—they re a match made in heaven. And on a stage in front of tens of thousands, Mugler s elaborate concoctions finally look perfectly in scale.
The label that still bears his name—now rechristened simply Mugler—is suddenly in the hands of another frantically obsessed-upon man who s made a side career of dressing a larger-than-life diva. He is the stylist Nicola Formichetti, and the diva in question is, of course, Lady Gaga. They—and many others, including designer Romain Kremer; photographer-filmmaker Mariano Vivanco; and a young Canadian with a face covered in skeletal tattoos named Rico—collaborated to create the debut Mugler menswear presentation, which kicked off the shows in Paris with enough buzz to amount to a bang. Editors, stylists, and demimondaines not otherwise in evidence at the men s collections came to a garage on the rue de Turenne to see the spectacle; over a hundred more ticketless acolytes huddled outside, hoping for a glimpse.
When the lights went down, a Vivanco film (starring tattooed Rico, alternately clawing at his latex-covered face and enveloped in a billowing veil) and a Gaga soundtrack (an unreleased number from her upcoming album, remixed for the occasion) came up. And then began the stomping parade of slight but furious-looking boys, their hair matted with grease and oil, some of their faces plastered with latex.
Their clothes mostly read as new—not old—Mugler. They borrowed certain signatures from the house s expansive vocabulary: the strong shoulders on the jackets, the shorn lapels, something of the originator s talent as a colorist. But they were quieter than Mugler s own brand of bombast, and less witty; they brought out the sinister side of suiting, the darker connotations of uniform. Formichetti s fabrics, especially the man-made neoprene, plastic, nylon, and latex, were sensuously textured but chilly—every other piece shone, but it was light without heat. The silhouettes alternated between painted-on tightness and, via baggy, pleated trousers, super-sized bulk—references to Mugler s preoccupations with superheroes, their mass and their costumes.
Pare the looks down to their composite pieces, and it s not clear how revolutionary they ll look. (Formichetti, backstage, pronounced the collection "wearable" with a touch of wonder.) Some grumbling was heard in the audience: This was styled more than designed, the criticism ran, a moving editorial rather than a fashion show, though ironically, these gripes largely claim from Formichetti s fellow stylists But there were also plenty of onlookers who were galvanized by what they d seen. There were moments of real beauty, including those that don t necessarily come through via photograph (one reason that Formichetti, like many of his compatriots in fashion s emerging new guard, is so interested in video and film). And for the millions of people without the baggage of the original—and millions is no exaggeration; Lady Gaga alone commands the attention of more than 7 million on Twitter, where she s been relentlessly publicizing the label—this is all a brave new world. Too soon to tell if this project will have legs in the long term, but hard to deny that it took a clamorous first step, and one that gave a tonic jolt to this so-far sleepy season.
