First Look, Best Look: Thierry Mugler Does Tar, Art

Fashion is constantly in pursuit of innovation, and yet somehow—as far as we know—tar has been unfairly left out of high fashion. At the first showing of the revived Thierry Mugler men’s line, under the creative direction of Nicola Formichetti, there were no feathers in sight, but the gunk that paves our open roads was all over the heads and faces of the new Mugler men. The models rushed down the runway in a Marais garage as no less than Lady Gaga as the soundtrack. Recorded, she said the name “Mugler” over and over, and riffed in German and English nonsensically. It wasn’t just Gaga who was getting arty on this occasion: Were Formichetti and Mugler men’s designer Romain Kremer thinking of the deceased Paul Thek, recently celebrated with a retrospective at the Whitney Museum in New York, and his recurring alter-ego, the charred Tarboy? Or was this a revival of disco trick-or-treat? We saw extra-wide pants and short, boxy waiter’s jackets with shoulders out to there—and, of course, pearls, veils and skull face paint.