The beginning of a story.
It all starts in 1976, when Helmut Newton is photographing Thierry Mugler's first campaign. The demanding designer dispenses ample instructions on how to proceed. Annoyed, the photographer holds out his camera and tells him to shoot his own campaign! It's a done deal in 1978. Thierry Mugler, for whom Peter Lindbergh is "one of the greatest photographers of all times", shoots his first ads.
Since then, he has been the artistic director in all his campaigns, creating the new visual for Alien in 2009.
Breathtaking photography.
Always looking for extraordinary, seemingly staged locations, Thierry Mugler travels to the 4 corners of the world with an impressive team in tow. He is fascinated with gigantic proportions, naturally occurring and man-made. Like with Dali or Chirico, the landscape becomes architecture and the architecture becomes landscape.
Photographs become paintings. Each created image is the proof of an excessively poetic or graphic viewpoint. For him, a photograph "must come from imagination, not represent the thought of what is; it must be repeated to perfection."
Photography publications.
In 1988, his photos are published in a book prefaced by the French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang: Thierry Mugler, photographer (Editions du Regard, Editions Rizzoli, Thames and Hudson Publishers).
The book contains not only the images of his advertising campaigns but also a series of photos for various magazines: Stern, Gala, Play Boy, Paris Match, Madame Figaro, Traveler's, Marie Claire, Photo, Avenue, Vogue... In 1998, another book, Fashion Fetish Fantasy (General Publishing Group USA), comes out. It features a selection of his work as fashion designer, showman and photographer.