Bonjour! Hello everyone! Do you recognize me? I am back! This is… The Fashion Codes of Mugler! Welcome to the land of superwomen, of latex bombshells, of femme bots, and CEOs with very long nails. You are watching The
Fashion Codes of Mugler. I am Natacha Morice, and I've read everything about Mugler. Hello, I'm Loic Prigent. The Fashion Codes is a collection of videos to learn about the history of a brand, and its pillars, the DNA, the anecdotes, the visual universe. With Natacha Morice, we're bringing you to the
fantastic story of Mugler. I'm going to explain
all the codes of Mugler, the star, the cutouts,
the incredible shows. Subscribe to the channel to
see everything about fashion. And it's a scoop! You can now dive into
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don't forget to leave a comment! This video is in English, No worries, subtitles are available! Right here, in the bottom right corner,
on the subtitles icon! You need to click to activate! Les Codes de la Mode MUGLER! Hello world. Tick tock, it's Mugler time! The cutouts. This is the most recognisable
code of the house today. Miggler is famous for making
clothes with multiple cutouts. If long lines of skin are
visible on the garment, you know it's Mugler. And you never know where
the scissors are going to end. Whether it is a pair of pants, a bodysuit, a pair of tights, or a jacket. Are they cutting in their sleep? Answer - they are. Mugler wants to sublimate your body, make your boobs look better, your butts look better, elongate your torso, no matter the body, shape it. But of course, this is all trompe I'oeil. All I'm wearing is trompe I'oeil. You think you see my torso? Trompe I'oeil. You think my arms are bare? Trompe I'oeil. When Casey Cadwallader becomes
creative director of Mugler, he goes on a wild
shopping hunt in pharmacies. He buys all the neck
braces and medical corsets, leg braces and compression stockings to study and dissect them. And you can tell in his collections. His obsession is the neckline. He likes to put into
light this part of the body. The black line covers just
what needs to be covered. The rest is visible. The cuts are like magic. Well, no. They're science. Because each cut has
been carefully thought out. They all have a specific mission. And each centimeter counts. It's calculated. I'm sure there is a Mugler laboratory where they do experiments
in quantum physics to find the perfect equation
to make you look hot. When you wear MUGLER... It's a performative wardrobe. The star. The star is the most well-known
fashion code of Mugler. Think of it. It's the shape of the perfume bottle,
Angel. And if you pay attention, it's everywhere in the Mugler world. On clothes, on runways,
on Thierry Mugler's ring and even on his coffin. He is very superstitious about this star. As Christian Dior was. Ah, stars and designers. Superstition. Thierry Mugler grew up in Strasbourg, where there is a gigantic cathedral, which had a very
important influence on him. He was obsessed with
stars and with Virgin Marys. As a child and a teenager,
he is always watching movies. And if you look closely at
production company credit opening logos, you'll see that stars are everywhere. And he was obsessed with movie stars. The star is a symbol of eternity,
of contemplation. It's an international symbol. It's magic. If you look up, you see stars. And Thierry Mugler loved
to make people look up. His shows are often constructed in stages. You look up to see the models come out. Even a red star is for him an inspiration. Who is the Mugler Woman? The Mugler Woman doesn't take the subway. She fiercely rides a majestic super train that speeds through the
underground of the Metropolis. Nobody dares to say no to her. The color blue. Oh, but no. Almost. Blue! Voila! The colors of Chanel are black and white. Hermes is orange. Valentino is red. Saint Laurent is black. Cloy is beige. Fendi is eggshell yellow. Lacoste is green. Dior is gray. Gucci is red and green. And Mugler. Well, Mugler is blue. It's the blue of the sea in Capri. The blue of the inside of icebergs. And blue is everywhere in Mugler. The factory was blue inside and outside. Even the perfume Angel is blue. When Thierry Mugler decides
to make his first perfume, Angel, he wants the juice to be blue. But the marketing team is like, "Are you cray cray? Are you cuckoo?" You can't do a liquid that is blue,
Thierry, come on. No! No, Thierry, no. Not blue. Women will be scared of
getting stained with this blue parfum. Thierry, I'm the goddess of perfumes, and it won't work. Stop believing in your stupid ideas. But Thierry Mugler was quite smart. Blue is actually the
favorite color of adults. And it was not only a success,
but a revolution as well. We can also associate
his love for the color blue to his love for the Virgin
Mary in the Catholic religion, as he presented many
Madonna's on the catwalk. Another color is Mystic Mauve. The perfume Alien is Mauve. A dark shade of amethyst. And there is a lot of
Mauve in the Mugler shows. The Corsets. Corsets are a very important
element of Mugler's DNA. Lasings and construction
lines are everywhere. Thierry Mugler loves
theatricality and classical dance. He's also obsessed
with transforming bodies, sublimating bodies, simplicity, Ugh! Minimalism is a dirty word. Maximalism. But the Corset. Corset should be the first name of Mugler. At the beginning of the 20th century, Paul Poiret deleted Corsets. Then in 1947,
Christian Gior brought it back. And then Courrèges
cancelled it again in 1965. And finally, in the 1980s, Jean Paul Gaultier and
Thierry Mugler bring it back. They didn't grow up in a
society where Corsets were mandatory. They didn't see their mothers suffer. So for them, it's glamorous. It's sexy. It's historical. It's like a costume. They have this idea of the
Corset from the cinema of the 1950s. For Thierry Mugler, it's Jessica Rabbit, the Queen in Snow White, the Libertine paintings of Fragonard, and Rita Hayworth. This comeback of the Corset happens
at the same time as the epidemic of AIDS. It's a time of great panic. The activists and the ministries of
health encourage people to stop having sex for instead having safe sex. To imagine
instead of having an active sexuality. The Corset comes back as a garment
that magnifies body and protects them. You think I extrapolate,
but that's how it was. The Corset was a fantasy. Nowadays, the Mugler Corset is
less constraining, more comfortable. It's not made with steel bones, but with technical fabrics that
build the shape and still permit movement. That's why Dua Lipa can do a
whole show wearing a Mugler Corset. She is not superhuman. She just has the right Corsets. Well, she's a bit superhuman. Manfred Thierry Mugler is born in 1948
in Strasbourg in the northeast of France, close to Germany. It's the land of bretzel and choucroute. Exactly what Thierry Mugler is not. Hello, I'm Natacha Morice. I'm a Chou. But I'm not a Croute. His father is a doctor and
his mother stays at home. She's an elegant woman. Always perfect. During his teenage years,
Thierry is a high-level classical dancer at
the opera of his town. Pretty lonely,
he's always reading superhero comics, watching movies and
dreaming of living for Paris. Ah, Paris, la mode. People don't eat choucroute in Paris. They eat tears of beauty. When he does,
he knows nothing about fashion. His career in fashion started by chance, after meeting the right
people and pretending to be a stylist. Well, he was already good
at drawing and super good at lying. In 1973,
Manfred Migler creates his first brand, Café de Paris. It means "Coffee of Paris", because he spends
his time at Café le Flore. It's quickly replaced by Mugler in 1974. At the time, haute couture is still alive,
but not very well. The old aristocracy is crumbling. The youth want something
more representative of their lives. Thierry Mugler arrives when prêt-à-porter, luxury ready-to-wear, is about to explode. It's the same era as Jean-Paul
Gaultier and Sonia Rykiel. His idea of fashion meets
the demand for modernity of the time, and is also very avant-garde. He has never used either
fur or exotic skin, ever. I told you, very avant-garde. He quickly becomes the new It designer. His crazy shows are the place to be. People fight to get in. They fight with their
stiletoes and their luxury bags. There seems to be no
limit to what he can do. He photographs his own campaigns. He directs the video of Too
Funky for George Michael. In 2002,
he's done everything and multiple times. So he decides to leave
his own house behind, and as his name is owned
by Clarins since 1997, he officially changes his
name for "Manfred Mugler", which is his real first name. Manfred Thierry Mugler. I recommend you to
watch his last interview. It's on this
very YouTube channel. Subscribe! MUGLER is a brand
populated by female robots, with bodies hot and strong! Casey Cadwallader experiments
with forms and materials to imagine the woman of the future. Of your future dreams. He has fun with hip pads
and torsos sculpted in plexi. Putting an armor around the female body. Protecting women as
well as embellishing them. I am wearing MUGLER Summer 2024. Well, it's wearing me. This is a tradition in the house of MUGLER: The sculptural woman. Thierry MUGLER made a
thousand variations on this theme, creating as many characters! You can't take your eyes off them, it's the MUGLER experience. You feel hot. You feel cold. What is happening? The inspiration, of course,
is the blockbuster of 1927, "Metropolis" by Fritz
Lang and its robotic divinity. Loic was at the premiere. There is the motorcycle bustier from 1991, sculpted by Jean-Pierre Delcros. It's in the collection of the Met Museum, which says, I quote, "The sighting of motorcycle
imagery for a bustier melds the concepts of
chassis and the female torso. The implication of the body
as a vehicle to be driven or ridden inevitably raises the
possibility of sexist interpretation." On the runway, however, the model gripping her handlebar,
"poigniers", steered herself, "Ha!" The color black, "Le noir". The other iconic color
of "Mugler" is black. The "Mugler" woman is not a princess. Oh, no. She is a vamp. She is a witch, but in the initial meaning, an independent, intelligent, fierce woman. She is disturbing. She is a dark empress, walking towards you. She has black widow's legs. Her breasts are enhanced, but you don't dare to leer at her because she might kill you in one glance. She wears black because
she's a working woman. She wears black because
she's a seductive widow. She wears black and she
doesn't need to justify herself. Understood? Good. Next. The "Spectacular Shows". Thierry Mugler has grown
up reading comic books and superhero stories, dancing and going to the movies. His imaginary world is filled
with fantastical creatures and wonderful clothes. When he starts doing fashion shows, he creates full spectacles. Models are not only showing clothes, they are playing a role. They are part of a story. Entering a Mugler fashion show is like entering a secret forest with magical beings, elves and insects. They take long poses. And then, another long pose. And the crowd claps. Come on, clap. In 1984, Mugler celebrates the 10th
anniversary of the house. It's an important anniversary, so he decides to spend a lot. But like... a lot. Like everything, actually. All the company's money. The next morning, they couldn't buy paperclips. I mean, how much is a paperclip? Like a thousand euros, right? No, Natacha, it's two thousand. A paperclip at least. Ah, really? You have to pay the gold. It's in gold now. Ah, yes, yes. The gold, yes. Isn't it for free? No, gold is not free. Ah, okay. That world is not for us, Natacha. No. The show was held at the music venue, The Zenith, in Paris. Six thousand people were present. Six thousand. Anyone could buy tickets. Just before the show, they were sold thousands
of francs on the black market. Loco! How easy to say, Loco, and you would have been the first to sell your soul, Natacha. Oh, okay, kind of true. Well, true. The category was a Mugler Fantasia. You've eaten the Eat-Me cookie. You followed the white rabbit. And Paff! You end up watching Pat Cleveland descending from the sky, dressed up as a Madonna. Hanging on by threads, even though she's pregnant. Oh, and there were angels too. And a rain of roses. A Thierry Mugler fashion show
is made of several chapters, each one being a theme. In the same show, you can have the working woman, and then the feline woman, and then the pure creature. In 1995, he does it again. The out-of-reality show. This time, the House of Mugler spends approximately three million dollars. The show starts with Tippi Hedren, the main actress in Alfred
Hitchcock's The Birds. And she's wearing black feathers,
of course. Brrr! James Brown singing Sex Machine. Supermodels everywhere. Go-go dancers, rich women, mistresses, CEOs, and a fembot in a golden metal bodysuit. We could go on and on, but the show was 17 hours long. We don't have time, guys. We live in the real world. Sorry. The fashion crowd talked about that show for easily ten years. I mean, look at us. We are still talking about it. After Tierry Mugler, the following artistic directors did more conventional shows. And then? Casey Cadwallader arrived. Yay! The shows came back. During the pandemic, he couldn't organize a fashion show. So what did Casey do? He made videos in replacement. Very dark and sexy videos. Models walked like superheroes. They did backflips in high heels. And these collection videos were as thrilling as shows. For his Spring-Summer 2024 collection, models burst down the runway. Wind machines have
been installed on the sides. They were long trains
that get blown in the wind. They become black jellyfishes and two octopuses. Tulle octopuses. Mmm! I'm wearing that collection, actually. It's a normal day. Nothing to write home about. Dear journal, today, nothing much. Just been fantastic. Again. And again. And again. Iconic. The muses. For some fashion houses,
models are just models. Beautiful but exchangeable. For some houses, like Mugler, models are muses. They are carefully picked because of their character,
of what they represent. Thierry Mugler would put on his podium people who were not
really accepted at the time. Porn stars or drag queens, for example. And he would give them the same importance as Diana Ross or Jerry
Hall or Linda Evangelista. To be part of the norm is not required to be part of the Mugler world. On the contrary,
extra-ordinarity is celebrated. Today, Mugler continues this philosophy. The shows are modeled by trans people, non-binary models, among classical supermodels like Bela Hadid or celebs like Paris Hilton. They are always inclusive and say. "Mugler is for everyone." Well, if you dare. And Hunter Shaffer is
now the new face of Angel. Of course. Mugler keeps dressing superstars like Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Beyoncé and Dua Lipa, the whole showbiz thing. The perfumes. You're halfway in the video. Subscribe! It took me 2 hours to put this dress on so be kind liking this video... Mugler is known
worldwide for its perfumes, starting with Angel. Created in 1992. Impressive fact. A bottle of Angel is sold
every ten seconds in the world. One bottle sold. Another bottle sold. Kaching! Thierry Mugler is a businessman, so he quickly understands
that he needs to create a perfume. It's how you make money. It's how your brand becomes famous. He wants his perfume to smell like a cake, the one his mother used to make. At the time, perfumes were not sweet. They smelled like amber powder,
ancient wealth. The marketing team doesn't
believe in sweet perfumes. What? Perfume that smells like a candy? Thierry, come on. Stop insisting. We know it won't work. You know they'd want to smell
like whiskey and cigarettes? A cake? Read my lips? No. But Thierry doesn't let go. He's sure young people want something new, something fun, and completely different
from classical perfumes. When Angel comes out, it's a total success. A new range of perfumes is created. The sweet perfumes. And since then,
most perfumes are inspired by Angel. Then he creates more
perfumes starting with an A. Like Amen, the first man perfume in 1996. Amen. And Alien in 2005. Alien is today a mega good performer. It's supposed to be a jewel in your hand, with a golden claw like a ceti. It's a Mugler perfume, so it's powerful. It's a love it or live it set. The Mugler men and women are strong. They love themselves. And they don't care if you don't. Alien is a creature
from out of our planet. She's above our atmosphere. You have to look up to see her. It's called a “Floral Woody Ambered”. Since 2019, Mugler is owned by L'Oreal. Attention please, fashion story time. The first official Mugler
fashion show takes place in October 1976. And guess the theme. Soviets and D'Artagnans. Yes, you heard right. D'Artagnan, one of the three musketeers. The one with the hat and the sword, yes. So Soviets and D'Artagnans. The financer is at the show, of course. Guess what happens? Well, he's horrified. When he agreed to finance Mugler,
he was thinking, Couture, Paris... Old rich ladies ordering
plenty of silk dresses, of course. Not Soviets and musketeers. On the first show? So he takes all of his money
back and asks Thierry to reimburse him. And so, well, Mugler goes bankrupt. Paff. Thierry Mugler had to
start from scratch again. But apparently didn't stop
him from creating an empire. Well, poor financer. I wonder where he is now. The denim. Denim is an important
part of the Mugler DNA. Casey Cadwallader loves to play
with the seams to transform the body. Casey is from the United States. And denim is America. Denim is the silk of the USA. So, of course,
his collections are full of denim. Pairs of jeans in every form. Not your usual pairs of jeans. There is the one with
your bum sticking out. Well, almost. The one with multiple cutouts. The Mugler pair of jeans is
like a puzzle that improves your body. A Mugler miracle. And sometimes zips are added. So you can show certain
parts of your body if you want. Interesting. Thierry Mugler also loves a good denim. He loves cowboys. There are many in his shows. The 1980s and the 1990s are the
celebration decades for designer denim. And Thierry Mugler always
wants his designs to be wearable. So denim is the perfect match. In 1987,
he even has a line delegated to denim. The artistic directors. When Thierry Mugler
leaves his brand in 2002, couture stops and only perfumes remain. In 2008, Rosemary Rodriguez is put
in charge of making a ready-to-wear line. In 2010, Nicolas Formichetti and Sebastien
Peigné become the artistic directors. Lady Gaga walks the show
and brings attention to the brand. In 2014,
the designer David Koma takes over. His Mugler woman goes to the office. She has her full life figured out. And she likes color-block. Since 2017, Casey Cadwallader has
been the artistic director of the brand. He was born in the USA. He has studied architecture,
which is perfect if you end up
at the head of Mugler. With him, Mugler has come
back to its very sensual identity. Women look like a fine black line,
like a pencil stroke, like a dark feather blowing in the wind. They walk like panthers. They walk like me. I am the muse. My name is Natacha Muserice. When Thierry Mugler
leaves his brand in 2002, the brand becomes Mugler. And they drop Thierry. The tailoring. We all have the same idea
of the working woman in the 1980s. She is wearing a suit with a tight skirt. The blazer has square
shoulders, thanks to important padding. Where do you think that comes from? Well, the designer responsible
for this silhouette is Thierry Mugler. There were suits in each fashion show,
multiple even, in every color. He gets his inspiration
from the military surplus that he pH'd for American
and Soviet uniforms. And that he totally destroyed
to study their perfect construction. That's why the Mugler
shoulder is so square and intimidating. At the time, the world was
interested in hippies and disco freaks. So it was very avant-garde to look
in the Red Army uniform for inspiration. A bold move. In the 80s Thierry Mugler used
to muglerize everyone, each employee. He even muglerized the accountant
woman so much that she got a divorce. Yeah, lucky her. Reason of divorce? She is too fabulous! Today, Casey Cadwallader always
presents a suit in his collections. At least one. It can be a blazer,
one of a very sexy tights, a cropped blazer,
a blazer that becomes a bodysuit, or a corset worn with tailored pants. It's a special kind of tailoring,
very sharp on the shoulders,
slim-fitted for the jacket. Mugler still has ateliers
in the center of Paris, with premieres making sure the
Mugler know-how is kept alive. And clearly it is. And voilà everyone! This
was Les Codes de la Mode Mugler. I know you don't want to
leave the Mugler planet. Me neither. Good news! There are many
Mugler videos on our channel. This is one of three videos about Mugler. We also have the last video
interview of Manfred Thierry Mugler and a report about the summer 2020 for
Mugler collection by Casey Cadwallader. Binge session! Subscribe to the channel to
see everything about fashion. Cheers! Xoxo!
