Nicola Formichetti's sophomore outing at Mugler began with a video of Lady Gaga singing: "I am a Mugler woman; don't fuck with me. Don't fuck with Mugler. Welcome to Paris; we are Paris." Not the pop superstar's best work, although as usual, it was hard to take your eyes off her on the big screen. Gaga made no repeat performance on the catwalk itself. Without her, the buzz factor wasn't quite the same as last season, which meant the clothes would have to do the talking.
Well, did they? We saw an improvement in the quality of the materials. There were no sheer fabrics, so there were fewer nipples on display. And, as far as we could tell, Formichetti and his collaborator, Sébastien Peigné, also mercifully avoided latex. Still, there were plenty of cutouts in all the provocative places, and miles of leg on display thanks to stretch skirts that arced up toward the hips in the front.
The looks that will probably charm the front-row party girls Claire and Virginie Courtin-Clarins, whose family backs the label, were the ones that incorporated chartreuse rhinestones. An asymmetric white top over glittery leggings, or a white jumpsuit with flashes of those crystals underneath will both make for sparkly pictures. Of course, it's a narrow little cross section of the world that has the bod and the lifestyle for these clothes. But if Mugler's 169,538 (and counting) Facebook likes are any indication, plenty of other plugged-in people are paying attention. That's probably good enough for the Mugler owners for now.
