What Perfumes have to do with Inspiration and Influence

 

 

Remember the last time you hugged someone and the scent remained on your sweatshirt for weeks!! This was exactly what happened on Saturday 11th January. I was attending a goal setting and entrepreneurship event and I sat beside a lady who was also connected to the speaker. She had been a volunteer in one of his earlier events. At the break we had time to chat and get to know each other better. Little did I know that before the end of that day, she would give me a hug that I would remember for a long time to come. Muses and angels must be involved somehow in perfumes and scents. Especially with respect to inspiration and deep connection.

 

Thierry Mugler: How did it all start?

 

 

“I never dreamed of being a fashion designer. I wanted to be a director,” Mugler once stated in an interview. “But fashion happened to be a good tool. It was a means of communicating.”

The ballet dancer turned fashion designer Thierry Mugler has orchestrated many of the most extravagant and over-the-top moments in fashion history. Think Pat Cleveland dressed as the Madonna descending from the ceiling of Zénith Paris stadium or of a vamping Linda Evangelista in the iconic video for George Michael’s “Too Funky,” which Mugler directed.

While his wide-shouldered, wasp-waisted, body-conscious creations helped redefine the female silhouette in the late 1980s, his fashion shows were spectacular. They were productions that would break boundaries not just in terms of spectacle and budget but also in casting. The biggest supermodels of the day rubbed shoulders with musical legends and drag queens. Even, in the case of Jeff Stryker and Traci Lords, who walked Mugler’s runway for an AIDS charity event in 1992, porn stars. “I never dreamed of being a fashion designer. I wanted to be a director,” Mugler tells T. “But fashion happened to be a good tool. It was a means of communicating.”

 

There has not been a show quite compared to Mugler’s fall 1995 haute couture extravaganza. Marking his brand’s 20th anniversary — staged at the Cirque d’Hiver venue in Paris. Mugler created a monolithic white set consisting of two runways connected by a spiral staircase with the star-shaped logo of his best-selling Angel perfume as a backdrop.

During an hourlong show, Mugler showed an unprecedented 300 looks on a diverse lineup of models from every era, including legends like Carmen Dell’Orefice, Veruschka von Lehndorff and his muse, Jerry Hall, alongside nascent superstars such as Naomi Campbell, Eva Herzigova and Kate Moss. The cast also included some of his favorite actresses, like Tippi Hedren and Julie Newmar, while the socialite Patty Hearst did a striptease. Mugler’s intention was “to show beauty through the ages,” and accordingly, the looks in the show ran the gamut from masterfully cut suits and glamorous evening dresses to a futuristic gold robotic bodysuit worn by Nadja Auermann. The show culminated with a performance by James Brown as confetti rained down and male go-go dancers gyrated. “It was like the Woodstock of fashion,” recalls the model Violeta Sanchez, who walked in the show.

 

 

And while Mugler — who now goes by his real name, Manfred — may have stepped away from his label in 2002 to concentrate on creative directing projects, his fantastical vision has been embraced by a new generation of pop stars, including Beyoncé and Cardi B, and designers, such as Jeremy Scott and Alexander McQueen, who have cited him as an influence. On the occasion of the designer’s first major museum retrospective, “Thierry Mugler: Couturissime,” which opens at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on March 2, Mugler and some of his collaborators recall the legendary 20th anniversary show.

 

 

Manfred Thierry Mugler, designer

 

The show was a challenge, but I liked a grand gesture. I was trying to break the rules! I’m fascinated by human beings who have honesty and authenticity — that’s most important to me. With my castings, I’m very honored and touched to have worked with so many personalities in my shows — they were strong clothes for strong people. On the show, we worked with the best — the best hat designer, Philip Treacy, the best corset maker, Mr. Pearl, so why not the best models?

 

Women like Jerry Hall are traffic stoppers — extremely beautiful living creatures who could really walk. I ended the show with James Brown, the god of soul, Mr. Sex Machine, because it was the right ingredient to balance the haute couture.

 

I didn’t feel it at the time, but soon after the show, I realized it was the end of the era. Afterward, fashion became a branding, marketing thing. The model agencies started controlling the world, and it all became cheesy to me. Fashion was not the same media, the same emotional message between people. It was all about labels. I love a great label, but fashion is an art. For me, beauty comes from the freedom to dare to be different. It’s all about being extremely yourself. Beauty is not used anymore as an emotional link for people, which is not right, because beauty is one of the most important things in life — and the world — if you are taking the time to look at it.

 

 

Angel Perfume- Loyalty to Perfume and Clothing Brands

 

Over the years, muses are known to have inspired the best of artists. The muse is said to be the friend of the creator of arts- from painters, to poets, to writers. One writer has described muses as those invisible psychic forces that support and sustain us in our journey to ourselves (speaking in terms of being our highest selves). Our highest self is often seen as our ideal i.e. the highest expression of our potentials and abilities. Sometimes, our ideal can be a bit judgmental –because we seem to always see the things left undone as it continues to act as our inner compass showing us what is possible. In our ideal state, we see things that are out of place. Things we should be doing. There always seems to be a gap between who we should be and who we currently are. That's why according to Prof. Jordan Paterson, our ideal is a judge.