While his work on the runway is well documented, the designer’s lesser-known photography is just as much a testament to his irrepressible creativity
When Manfred Thierry Mugler passed away on Sunday, he not only left behind a vast legacy of iconic designs, but a huge oeuvre of photography documenting his kaleidoscopic world. Each time the designer created a collection, he simultaneously built an immersive universe that brought his fantasy to life. Considering himself a director first and foremost, he developed imaginative storyboards, oversaw collections from sketch to production, scouted models and locations, staged elaborate fashion shows, and often photographed his campaigns himself. Mugler was a creative with complete control.
Mugler took his first fashion photo at the age of 14, during a show he staged while he was a professional ballet dancer at the The Opéra national du Rhin in Alsace, France. He began designing his own clothes when he moved to Paris aged 20, and debuted his brand six years later in 1974. Fashion photographer Helmut Newton shot the two earliest Mugler campaigns, before encouraging the rising designer to start photographing his brand himself.
“As soon as Maison Thierry Mugler had a budget for a print campaign, I obviously reached out to Helmut because it was a perfect fit. I adored his work, it was totally in sync with my universe. He agreed right away, but very quickly, he told me: 'Listen, you’re being a real pain. You know exactly what you want. Here, why don’t you take the camera and shoot it yourself?'” Mugler recounted in an interview with WWD in September 2021 . This push from Newton kickstarted a decade-spanning photography career that translated Mugler’s boundary-pushing vision into print.
Mugler used the camera to memorialise his cast of futuristic, fembot, gravity-defying characters and the scenes he placed them in. He travelled across the globe scouting locations, and captured his muses against iconic buildings and breathtaking natural landscapes. The resulting body of photography celebrates the transformative nature of fashion: his models became otherworldly deities lounging on ice caps and posing on the edges of rooftops.
His first photo book Thierry Mugler: Fashion Fetish Fantasy was published in 1988 during his most prolific era as a photographer. The book combined photographs of Mugler’s designs by fashion photographers like Newton and David LaChapelle, alongside swathes of his own images and sketches. The pages document his legendary supermodel-filled runways, his costume designs for a theatre production of Macbeth and Linda Evangelista in George Michael’s "Too Funky" music video, and his collaborations with stars like David Bowie and Diana Ross.
Manfred Thierry Mugler, Photographer, published by Abrams in April 2020, is the source of most of Mugler’s most complete and detailed archive of photos. The eponymous book is a fantastic collection of his most memorable images as well as unseen photos from his private collection and firsthand accounts of his travels. The extensive collection of images cements Mugler not only as one of the most iconic designers of all time, but also as a talented photographer with a strong eye for lighting and composition.
“I dream in images and I want to realise that image using the best ingredients,” Mugler told Vogue in an interview in 2020. “The best ingredients are, of course, in nature – they’re not a green screen or Photoshop. So then you have to go on a quest for quality: to find the best, most beautiful vision you can, whether that be icebergs in Greenland, incredible rocks in Utah, mosques made from mud in Mali or sand dunes in the Sahara. It’s about the appeal of adventure,” he added.
Along with travelling to the world's most breathtaking natural wonders, Mugler placed models against backdrops of historical buildings and statues like the futuristic Monument to Cosmos Scientists in Moscow, the Great Mosque of Djenné in Mali, the Chrysler Building in New York, the Opéra Garnier in Paris, and the colourful Tlalpan Chapel in Mexico City. But he wasn’t only into man-made landmarks.
Even though Mugler’s world was all his own, he thrived off collaboration. From the photographers he worked with to the models and celebrities he dressed, he inspired everyone to match his powerful, provocative energy. He even occasionally photographed his muses in the designs of his contemporaries. In one particularly famous photo, in which a model stands atop a giant red star, the clothes featured are by Alaïa, not Mugler. Designer Azzedine Alaïa was a close friend of his, and helped Mugler conceive a series of collections in the late 70s, before branching out and setting up his own namesake label in the early 80s thanks to a little encouragement from his friend.
Mugler would often have a specific idea of what he wanted and was notorious for asking his models to scale buildings – and he was often right on the edge with them – or wait patiently for hours and sometimes days to get the perfect lighting. The respect he had for his models was mutual and they willingly obliged to his requests, resulting in some of the most moving fashion photography to date. Below, we remember Thierry Mugler through his most captivating photography.
Volgograd countryside, Russia, 1986
Mugler spotted this striking 66-foot-tall crimson star atop a building while driving through the countryside in Volgograd, Russia at a time when visiting the Soviet Union was nearly impossible. Upon spotting the massive star, Mugler promptly asked model Angela Wilde to scale the building. The result is the now iconic photo of her on top of the star framed against a bright blue sky.
Les Infernales collection, Chrysler Building, 1988
Picture this: a ladder sticking out of a window at the top of New York City’s Chrysler building, Thierry Mugler’s body flattened across the ladder’s rungs stretching his camera out to get the perfect bird’s eye image of blonde bombshell Claude Heidemeyer wearing his designs, sprawled across the metal wing of the building two stories below. The risky maneuver only lasted a few seconds and two assistants held onto the other end of the ladder until Mugler got his shot and was lowered safely back inside the window.
Dauphine de Jerphanion in Paris, 1986
Mugler photographed Dauphine de Jerphanion, french model and his long time muse, against the ornate architecture of famous landmarks in France including the Grand Trianon at Versailles and the Trocadero esplanade in Paris. Mugler would transform de Jerphanion into a different Hollywood starlet every time. In this photo she is playing a character named “Widow of the Air,” dreamed up by Mugler.“I would go into makeup at 4 a.m. One day, I would be Eva Perón, the next, Marlene Dietrich,” she said. “Thierry Mugler was always reading the biographies of stars. He knew every movie,” the late model Dauphine de Jerphanion said in an interview with French magazine Stiletto in 2004.
Carol Miles in Mali, 1987
Mugler was so set on photographing the mud-based architecture of Mali’s mosques and royal palaces that he spent four hours drinking tea with the men of the town in order to get permission to photograph his model against the backdrop of the monumental adobe buildings. Upon receiving the authorization, Mugler asked model Carol Miles to perch on top of the massive rectangular pillars of the Mosque of Djenné .
Shana Zadrick, Cabazon Dinosaurs, 1991
Mugler fused the past and the present to create a world all his own. The Cabazon Dinosaurs roadside attraction in California served as the perfect setting for Mugler’s vision. In one photo from this playful series, a model hangs from the hand of a giant dinosaur in a shot reminiscent of King Kong, in another frame a model dances atop the prehistoric replica’s head.
Jerry Hall, New Mexico, 1995
Mugler directed and photographed Jerry Hall for the debut campaign of Angel perfume, his first foray into fragrance. Mugler waited all year to shoot at the right time of the season in White Sands, New Mexico. Makeup artists would start doing Hall’s makeup before sunrise in a rundown motel next to the park. Because Mugler timed the lighting perfectly, the shoot required no post-production. “Jerry, no matter the time of day or the conditions, was giving Jerry Hall to everyone from the firefighters on duty to the waitress serving pancakes at 6 in the morning. If they wanted a picture with her, she would always pull out the stops,” he told WWD in an interview last year.
Anna Bayle, Greenland, 1987
For an editorial in Greenland, Mugler took model Anna Bayle, his longtime muse, and a stylist on a boat and brought them out to sea so they could get a pristine shot against the icebergs. “It was around the summer solstice so we had the midnight sun. [Anna], this brave lady, would have to step onto the iceberg, positioned on tiny pieces of folded survival blankets hidden from view, and I would take the photo in about two seconds. Sometimes we’d wait for days to get the right light,” Mugler told Vogue.
Carol Wilson, New York, 1988
Mugler and Carol Wilson traveled around New York City’s Financial District, exploring the tops of building facades. Mugler was constantly taking risks to bring the image in his head to life. For this photo, he followed Wilson on the slanted roof to capture her mid-dance teetering on the ledge above the cityscape.
Iman, Sahara Desert, 1985
Hours of waiting and hair and makeup calls at 4am were required to create this captivating image of Iman in the Sahara Desert framed against the bright blue sky. For the shoot, Mugler’s team began doing Iman’s makeup in the middle of the night using a generator for light in order for her to be ready by the time the sun was at the optimal spot in the sky.
Evelyne Gaud-Peretti, Guilin Valley, China, 1985
Mugler found an endless source of inspiration in China, from the verdant forests of Guilin Valley where he photographed model Evelyne Gaud-Peretti to the bustling city of Beijing, where he spent time during his trip taking in the beauty of the diverse faces of its visitors. “When I was in China in the ‘80s, when it was still under hardline Communist rule, the government gave every Chinese citizen three days off to come to Beijing and see the sights, such as the Great Hall of the People and Mao’s tomb. On Tiananmen Square in Beijing, you would see the most incredible mix of ethnicities,” Mugler told Vogue.
Djimon Hounsou, White Sands, New Mexico, 1988
Mugler returned to the White Sands in New Mexico multiple times to photograph his subjects against the bright white, wave-like sand. For this shoot he invited his muse Djimon Hounsou who posed for the designer across various continents in the late 80s. Mugler discovered Hounsou when he was 22 and living on the streets of Paris and catapulted him to stardom. “I went from washing in fountains to becoming an international model overnight,” Hounsou recalls in an interview with Variety.
Photography has been taken from Thierry Mugler, Photographer, published by Editions de la Martinière, which is available to buy here.