The MA in Fashion Studies continues its collaboration with the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation on the exploration of heritage and fashion with a project on the couturier and designer Thierry Mugler. Students had the unique opportunity to work in collaboration with the Foundation and explore the garments and documents collected by Azzedine Alaïa in his unique collection of more than twenty thousands pieces with special strengths in the work of 20th century masters like Balenciaga, Madame Grés, and Vionnet, as well as the late 20th century avant-garde works by Maison Margiela, Comme des Garcons, and Yohji Yamamoto.
During the Spring Semester 2025, Parsons Paris MA Fashion studies students of the course ‘Fashion, Memory and the Politics of Heritage’ had the unique opportunity to work in collaboration with the Foundation and explore Thierry Mugler’s creations and documents collected by Azzedine Alaïa. In this period, they investigated the relationship between the two creators and an alternative way to look at fashion and heritage beyond garments. They develop a parallel curatorial path displaying, in four cabinets, some key documents such as unseen Mugler’s invitations belonging to the Foundation alongside the archival research made by the students during this year. Each cabinet explores one aspect of heritage making, reflecting on questions of institutionalization of the work, life and legacy of Mugler through Alaïa's historical collection and beyond.
Curators: Mary Jane Aoun, Chloë Blewett, Laura Camilli, Sophia Fouroohi Martin, Gus Gingrich, Sophia Hernando, Adriana Hill, Victoria Pisarenko, Arianna Quinn, Jenna Sharaf, Marina Teubal, Priyanka Venugopal
Direction and Faculty: Antoine Bucher and Marco Pecorari
Coordination: Isabella Volpe
Research and Organization Support: Adriana Hill
Communication: Lisa Sarma
Thanks: Carla Sozzani, Olivier Saillard, Gaël Mamine, Françoise Guittard, Sandrine Tinturier and all the staff at the Fondation Azzedine Alaïa, Nicolas Montagne, Marlene Van de Casteele, Salomé Dudemaine, Alexandra Jaffré, Stephanie Ovide, Cesar Imbert.
The universe of Thierry Mugler has always been guided by a very strong visual identity. Today, as the fashion world widens to embrace other artistic fields like cinema, dance, photography, music, etc., Mugler's work seems more than ever to be at the heart of this new dynamic. Mugler’s heritage has been condensed into what we think of extravagant performative looks: motorcycle corsets, angelic wings and alien silhouettes. This is partly due to the narrative that museums and exhibitions have laced him in.
Curated by Thierry-Maxime Loriot, Couturissime was the first major blockbuster retrospective on him. First unveiled at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2019 and afterword traveling to several other cities, this exhibition did more than display clothes, it redefined Mugler as a multidisciplinary artist whose work spanned fashion, photography, costume design, cinema, and performance. Mugler was never only a fashion designer; he was a showman whose theatrical instincts elevated his work far beyond traditional couture. By staging Mugler within a museum context, Couturissime repositions the broader principle of fine arts and cultural production. The exhibition was immersive in the most literal sense: elaborate set designs, theatrical lighting, and evocative soundscapes created a sensory-rich journey that echoed the grandiosity of Mugler’s original runway shows.
This retrospective spotlighted Mugler, but other institutions and exhibitions have subsequently followed this narrative of grandiosity. Heavenly Bodies, in 2018, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is a prime example of this. Displaying his "Madonna" evening ensemble (A/W 1984-85), suspended above the gallery, between the vaulted ceilings, this piece looms overhead, like an angel, about to descend. Model Pat Cleveland wore this gown as the final piece in Mugler’s `Angel’ show in Paris. She actually came down from the ceiling onto the runway for the show’s finale.
In an article published by FIDM on Mugler’s work in their shows Thierry Mugler: Alien to Angel in 2017, and Capturing the Catwalk: Runway Photography from the Michel Arnaud Archive in 2018, they write: “Perhaps Mugler’s greatest fashion legacy is his over-the-top fashion shows. Beyond the practical purpose of a fashion show, Mugler saw an opportunity to build new worlds of fantasy.” The Kunsthalle München in Germany described his work as “a spectacular fashion extravaganza”.
However, while many exhibitions and institutions have positioned Mugler’s work as a spectacle, others have taken a different approach, focusing on the often overlooked aspects of his designs, particularly his tamer ensembles and his ready-to-wear items. The attention to a material knowledge was at the core of the exhibition ‘Metiers d’Art’ at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in 1980 for ‘The Year of Patrimony’ in France that celebrated the work of Mugler (and Alaïa) as excellences of tailoring. In the book ‘Album’ (1997), the Musée des Arts Decoratifs pays once again tribute to Mugler who is paired with Alaïa in order to mark a dialogue of craftsmanship. While Alaïa was famously devoted to the craft of construction, Mugler used tailoring as a means to achieve his sculptural, dramatic silhouettes, often employing Alaïa to bring his ideas to life. Placing their works side by side creates a new lens through which to view Mugler, not only as a showman but as a designer with an appreciation for form and structure. This more restrained aspect of his practice, often overshadowed by his spectacular runway pieces, is finally acknowledged as integral to his vision.
In 2006, the curator Olivier Saillard revived this attention developing ‘Thierry Mugler Diaporama’ as a series of installations, talks and workshops at the Musée des Arts decoratifs to explore the relationship between the technical and the visionary approach of French couture. This was also the occasion to develop a dialogue between a public museum and a brand that started to develop the ‘Mode et Patrimoine’ department.
The story of Mugler’s pieces in the international museums’ scenes begins in the Nineties with the work of the curator Richard Martin who often featured Mugler’s work in his exhibitions like Fashion and Surrealism (1987) at F.I.T. and later at the Costume Institute. In various exhibitions, such as Extreme Beauties (2002) or Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy (2008) Mugler is presented for its extravagant quality but there is a constant attention to its sharp, architectural tailoring. These exhibitions featured cut suits, strong shoulders, and nipped waists; elements that later became exaggerated in his haute couture shows after 1992.
The exhibition ‘Our New Clothes: Acquisitions of the 1990s’ at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art showcased key additions to the museum’s collection over the previous decade, highlighting how contemporary fashion was being recognized as a form of artistic and cultural expression worthy of institutional preservation. The inclusion of Thierry Mugler’s fall–winter 1995–1996 black wool and cotton velvet suit positioned his design within a lineage of innovation and craftsmanship. The curatorial text underscores Mugler’s "scrupulous, body-cleaving tailoring", highlighting the way he sculpted garments to flatter and empower a “confident few.” This acquisition frames Mugler not simply as a showman of latex and chrome but as a designer grounded in sartorial discipline. It draws a direct line between Mugler and the legacy of Hollywood costume designer Adrian, suggesting that Mugler distilled Adrian’s glamour into a more contemporary, hyper-feminized form. What’s especially striking is the acknowledgement of tailoring as central to Mugler’s vision. The suit, with its feline, second-skin silhouette, becomes a symbol of how Mugler blended the rigor of construction with the fantasy of fashion.
So, is it fashion or is it spectacle? Mugler's work lies in refusing to choose. His creations insist that fashion can be both a site of structure and drama, fantasy and performance. In celebrating both the suit and the show, we begin to understand the full complexity of Mugler’s heritage.