Beyoncé already explained to us on her seventh studio album, the ballroom-culture-inspired disco and nightclub-infused Renaissance, that she’s that girl, she’s the bar and a mastermind in haute couture.
Now, the 32-time Grammy Award winner is done with telling us why she deserves every ounce of respect put on her name; she’s demonstrating why in a dazzling display of some of the most iconic silhouettes of the last half-century.
Sartorially personifying the line “This haute couture I’m flaunting” from “Summer Renaissance”, Beyoncé has commenced her 57-stop world tour with a melange of custom high-octane ensembles that are putting couture back in discotheque culture.
Beyoncé opened her world tour in Stockholm, with enough glitz and glam that wouldn’t rival the disco ball lousily hanging above the dance floor at Studio 54, Limelight or Tunnel, it would send it into a complete state of envy.
Her looks were like visual ecstasy, with mountains of rhinestones and iconic references that would send pulses racing for any queer person in attendance.
In custom Loewe by Jonathan Anderson, Beyoncé paid homage to the trompe l’oeil beige dress adorned with latex hands from the luxuriate’s Fall/Winter 2023 collection.
Here, Anderson fashioned the surrealist silhouette into a custom Swarovski-crystal catsuit, with an illusion of hands reaching around the singer’s figure proving she’s unequivocally untouchable. An apt choice for the theatrical, disco-era that Beyoncé embodies in Renaissance.
Elsewhere, Beyoncé donned a Nicolas Di Felice-designed bodysuit from Courrèges which took cues from the retrofuturistic codes the André Courrèges helped pioneer in the 60s.
Fresh off a design partnership with Balmain, Beyoncé also sported a corset designed by Olivier Rousteing and made entirely out of pearls—a motif she later reprised when emerging from a clam shell to serenade the dutiful audience.
Alexander McQueen, David Koma and Coperni were also amongst the high-fashion maison’s that make up Beyoncé’s tour wardrobe.
But the piece de resistance came in the final moments of the show, and no, we’re not talking about the Bianca Jagger-inspired gilded horse sculpture Beyonce literally rode around the stadium on. Sartorially referencing her Beyhive, the pop supernova donned a buzzy black and yellow custom bodysuit and matching antenna from Mugler’s Casey Cadwallader.
Indeed, the H&M x Mugler collaboration wasn’t spotted on Bey, but a Thierry Mugler-approved silhouette that harked back to the late fashion maverick’s Spring/Summer 1997 collection.
Beyoncé also donned a sensual space robot-inspired suit in reference to Mugler’s Spring/Summer 1995 collection—and of course the fact she’s an alien superstar!
beyoncé in custom mugler at the renaissance world tour referencing thierry mugler fall 1995 collection pic.twitter.com/i2i2xfG4X3
— ❦ (@thesoftestaura) May 10, 2023
There’s a reason her career was satirised by Donald Glover in the psychological thriller Swarm, she really is the showgirl of our generation (sorry Nomi Malone).
This article first appeared on GRAZIA USA.