Montreal and Rotterdam to host first retrospective on Thierry Mugler

The cities of Montreal, in Canada, and Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, will be the first ones to receive a major exhibition on Thierry Mugler’s work. Titled Couturissime and curated by Thierry-Maxime Loriot and Nathalie Bondil, the exhibit will debut in March at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and then proceed to Kunsthal Rotterdam in the fall.

Couturissime features more than 140 outfits created by the French fashion designer between 1973 and 2001, including haute couture and ready-to-wear pieces, as well as 100 photographs by the likes of David LaChapelle, Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts and Guy Bourdin, among others. Visitors will also get to see sketches, documents, accessories and stage costumes which were never displayed to the public before.

“The exhibition offers a dive into his singular imagination, to encounter by turns his perfectionism, Hollywood-style prestige, dreams, exotic creatures, eroticism, and science fiction. It will explain his audacious choices, such as using innovative materials in high fashion such as metal, fake fur, vinyl and latex”, said Kunsthal Rotterdam in a statement.

Born in 1948, Thierry Mugler rose to fame with his eponymous label in the 1980s and retired from the runways in 2011. He’s famous for his collaborations with Cirque du Soleil, Beyoncé and movies like Indecent Proposal.

Photo: Alan Strutt, Yasmin Le Bon, Palladium, Londen,1997_ EveningStandardMagazine,Oct 1997_Foto ©Alan Strutt. Outfit Thierry Mugler_La Chimère Coll, FW97-98. Courtesy of Kunstal Rotterdam