On Sunday, January 23, the Facebook page for Manfred Thierry Mugler, one of the industry’s most innovative, freethinking fashion designers, announced his passing.
“We are devastated to announce the passing of Mr Manfred Thierry Mugler on Sunday January 23rd 2022. May his soul Rest In Peace,” the post read.
“A visionary whose imagination as a couturier, perfumer and image-maker empowered people around the world to be bolder and dream bigger every day,” it continued on his Instagram page.
Mugler’s agent has since confirmed that he died of natural causes.
The designer is known globally for his bold, distinguishable creations that peppered the fashion landscape with a sense of unwavering creativity, fearlessness and drama.
A former ballet dancer, Mugler was born in Strasbourg in 1948, and he founded his brand Mugler in 1973. There, his fresh vision as a designer became paramount through fierce structural contrasts in his designs — notably, cinching waists and broadening shoulders.
In 2002, Mugler stepped back from his brand, which also closed the fashion side of the marque up until 2010, leaving Mugler’s popular perfume range to take centre stage.
However, the designer never stopped creating.
Mugler was the mind behind Beyonce’s cyborg-meets-chic look that the singer wore on tour during the early 2000s. More recently, Kim Kardashian’s dripping wet crystal and latex number at the 2019 Met Gala (which took eight months to make) was another of Mugler’s creations. His design endeavours since retirement prove that his creativity and understanding of fashion, as well as its possibilities, never dampened.
Since the announcement of his death on Sunday, celebrities and fashion lovers from all over the internet have paid their tributes to a designer whose legacy speaks to the importance of being bold, different and daring.
Sharing a photo of herself with the designer, Diana Ross wrote: “I will miss you Thierry Mugler this was a wonderful time in our lives”
Designer Brian Atwood also wrote: “Thierry was such a visionary, a showman and a lover of the female form. He placed women on a pedestal of unreachable heights…”
