When Thierry Mugler met Azzedine Alaïa, in 1979, he was nearly a decade younger but already staging extravagant fashion shows. Alaïa, more reserved, was revered for his precise tailoring—a craft he honed with an academic rigor that echoed predecessors like Cristóbal Balenciaga. That year, Mugler invited Alaïa to design tuxedos for his autumn-winter collection, even crediting him in the press kit. Three years later, in 1982, when Bergdorf Goodman invited Alaïa to present his first New York show, he hesitated—until Mugler convinced him. The show’s success launched Alaïa’s brand, and soon the two were defining the decade. “The ’80s brought sexy back,” says Olivier Saillard, director of the Fondation Azzedine Alaïa, “and the decade belonged to Mugler and Alaïa.” Turning away from 70s bohemia, their designs embraced sculpted Old Hollywood glamour. The men’s friendship, now the subject of a new exhibition, unfolds through 72 Alaïa pieces set alongside 200 Mugler designs from Alaïa’s personal collection. —Jeanne Malle