Nicola Formichetti brought Mugler's womenswear collection back in a theatrical fashion show starring Lady Gaga herself and a horde of models clad in teetering platforms, all live-streamed across the Web.
Hyped in gargantuan Gaga style, Nicola Formichetti's show for Mugler did not disappoint Wednesday in Paris in terms of spectacle, though the majority of American fans (including us) watched the show via a video feed on Facebook.
The perfectly executed broadcast began with the goings-on backstage and in the front-of-house—with a superior audio rig that managed to catch even, for a moment, Anna Wintour's front-row cell phone conversation—until Lady Gaga arrived, and cameras were privvy to her backstage pre-show butterflies.
"If I vomit onstage, it'll be good press," she said, as she was outfitted in statement pigtails.
Vomit she did not. To the beat of her new track, Government Hooker, Gaga took to the maze of gothic cathedral arches with a cigarette in her mouth, as models struggled to stay upright in perilous platforms. We'll give it to her, she strutted like a pro, making two properly dramatic appearances throughout the run.
Gaga was joined by a fierce Coco Rocha, hamming it up in leather pants and animal horns, and Jessica Stam, looking almost demure behind the face-tattooed Rick Genest—the show's lone male.
Overall, the collection Formichetti described as "wearable" was very much tied to the futuristic power-dressing that was the heart of Thierry Mugler in the '90s. Oversized, angular shoulders and pin-thin silhouettes ruled, as did a swath of sheer fabric on nearly every ensemble. Despite the fanfare—sprite-like animal horns and tribal face-painting makeup—much of the suiting and dresses got by on minimalist lines and bold, solid black, white and primary orange and blue. What wasn't sheer or matte wool was bathed in raccoon fur or nearly-irridescent metallic.
It was everything a fashion show should be, essentially: wild get-ups on big stars behaving naughtily and new pop songs playing, models alternating between taking spills all over the runway in foot-high footwear and making feline faces at the camera—all for an elite industry audience in Paris, and the world over on Facebook.
