Manfred Mugler and his photographs

Manfred Thierry Mugler, Palais Garnier Paris, 1986, © Manfred Thierry Mugler.

The "Manfred Thierry Mugler Photographer" exhibition at the Polka Galerie in Paris presents the photographic side of the fashion designer's work. These photographs, which he has been taking since the end of the 1970s, testify to a rigorous sense of direction and a fascinating imagination.

An admirer of Helmut Newton, Manfred Thierry Mugler began at the end of the 1970s to take charge of the photography of his advertising campaigns himself. While he had called on Helmut Newton in 1978 for one of them, he couldn't help suggesting some staging ideas, until Helmut Newton offered Thierry Mugler to take the photo himself. device in hand. Manfred Thierry Mugler the designer then became Manfred Thierry Mugler the photographer.

The training and career of Manfred Thierry Mugler, a classical dancer with the Ballet of the Opéra national du Rhin at the age of 14 and then a student at the Decorative Arts School in Strabourg, nourished his vision as a photographer. His contact with the world of theater and entertainment gave him a taste for costumes but also a sense of staging. Thus the photographs of his advertising campaigns are conceived as shows with rigorous staging.

Manfred Thierry Mugler, Cabazon Dinosaurs California, 1991, © Manfred Thierry Mugler.

Manfred Thierry Mugler's photographs are the fruit of a relentless quest for the ideal setting. A quest that leads him, accompanied by his models, across the whole world and to the most extravagant places. We thus discover a model perched near the eagles of the Opéra Garnier in Paris, others at the top of the Chrysler Tower, in New York, in the Sahara desert or on the tip of a monumental red star in Volgograd. So many shots taken without any special effects that testify to a fascinating imagination and a passionate vision that transforms ordinary reality into a grandiose and futuristic dream.