For a long time, I watched a digital waif-like Lady Macbeth arise from fog, flame and glossy filaments and disappear again on the top floor of the Brooklyn Museum as part of an immersive exhibit on iconic French designer Thierry Mugler. Costumes created by Mugler for The Tragedy of Macbeth at the 1985 Comédie-Française and Festival d'Avignon, are projected in a 3D installation by artist Michel Lemieux at the entrance to the exhibit. Lady Macbeth's writhing body commands the room, and as she dissolves into remorse, she seems to set the rhythm for the rest of the experience. Brutalist and futuristic, at first glance Mugler's work is a prayer to the power in the hyper-feminine. Famous for his Madonna-beloved bionic fembot chrome corsetry, curators also take time to highlight Mugler's unexpected but unmistakable sense of wonder with the natural world. 

On display is the iconic Autumn/Winter 1997-1998 'La Chemères' dress, an iridescent full-length gown and headpiece, chitin-like, seemingly spun from the backs of green beetles or butterfly wings. The breastplate formed of serpent scales and delicate sprays of the headpiece harkens to a bygone time of nymphs and chimeras. Come for this dress, if anything at all. Reverence for organic form and softness, words not usually associated with Mugler, is palpable in the Meduse de Bal gown, a sweeping dollop of tiered organza pleating. No one else, save perhaps Alexander McQueen, toed this line of murderous strength and softness quite like Mugler. Lose yourself at the Brooklyn Museum as I did for several hours, in over one hundred couture gowns and mesmerizing displays of photography, film and advertisements chronologizing Mugler's 'glamazon' world.