Thierry Mugler's iconic designs

Mugler collaborated with designer Abel Villarreal on this rubber and leather "tire" suit for his spring/summer 1997 haute couture Les Insectes collection. "Mugler understood the transformative power of clothing — the role of garments as prompts, hints, props and disguises," wrote fashion journalist Lou Stoppard. This collection was praised for refreshing French haute couture.

In his teens, Mugler toured as a professional dancer before he attended design school. The theater appeared to stay with him: In 2013, he created a revue called "Mugler Follies," which ran for nearly two years at the Comédia theater in Paris. He designed the wardrobe and wrote most of the songs for the show that brought together dancers, singers, acrobats, performers and models.

Throughout his career, Mugler collaborated with a number of pop music icons, including Rihanna, Diana Ross, Beyoncé, Katy Perry and Celine Dion, dressing them for the red carpet or music videos. Shown above, Lady Gaga wears one of his outfits in her single "Telephone," from 2010. Mugler's vintage pieces, which create hyper feminine silhouettes, are highly sought-after.

When Helmut Newton was first hired to shoot a Thierry Mugler campaign in 1976, the designer intervened so often that Newton told him he should do the photos himself. Mugler did publish his own photography after that, but that didn't prevent the duo from working together again. "They acted as equals, two masters of their respective métiers," said Helmut Newton Foundation curator Matthias Harder.

One of his masterpieces, La Chimère, resembles a mythic creature straight from a Hollywood fantasy film. This particular piece from Mugler's fall/winter 1997-1998 haute couture collection sparkles with rhinestone-encrusted scales and an armor-like bodice. Wagnerian opera heroines also inspired Mugler's designs.

Mugler directed the George Michael video for his 1992 hit single, "Too Funky," featuring this structural ensemble with details lifted directly from a funky motorcycle: rear-view mirrors, handles on the waist and a shiny hood ornament. The video presented a playful version of the fashion world putting on a show, from the horrors of backstage to the glamour of the runway.

Confident in his designs, Mugler experimented with a variety of unconventional materials like metal, latex and vinyl. In 1994 collection for Longchamps, he used different silver body piercing rings and tribal-inspired metal spikes to accentuate the lines and curves of this fitted dress with a high collar and leather panels.

In spring 1992, Mugler presented his runway show for the Les Cow-boys collection, taking cues from the American old west. It featured "a vision of the modern fairy tale and its pop legends named Dolly Parton, Mae West and the Andrews Sisters, icons of western style for the designer's 'free and fierce women, who have a lot of drive,'" wrote the Montreal museum curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot.

Mugler was one of the first fashion designers to support the idea of supermodels and celebrities on the runway. Model Jerry Hall has been one of Mugler's muses throughout his career as she embodied his vision of a "glamazon," projecting a powerful, fearless woman with old Hollywood glamour in front of the camera. She starred in the advertising campaign for his first fragrance, Angel.