The appearance of the recently divorced Ivana Trump on Thierry Mugler’s runway inspired not only “Viva Ivana,” an outrageous and bedazzingly evening ensemble, but a cringe-worthy headline: “Ivana Be a Model.” Although Trump shared the stage with a typically diverse Mugler cast that mixed supermodels, a male porn star, and alt luminaries like Dianne Brill, the real star of the Western-themed show was Mugler’s Harley-Davidson bustier worn with leather shorts by Niki Taylor, which caught Beyoncé’s attention when it was included in the Met’s “Superheroes” show.
Mugler, wrote Vogue in 1992, “is the master of specially made goods. All of his theatrical pieces can actually be ordered if you’re willing to pay the price”—and Beyoncé was. Not only was she photographed in the motorcycle bustier, but she hired the Frenchman to create stage costumes and direct parts of her I Am Sasha Fierce tour. “I was very touched that she asked me,” Mugler told The Telegraph, “because she could have asked younger people. But she recognized that I was pretty much at the origin of this moment now about superheroes, the structured silhouette and the extreme silhouette, and she wanted that.”
