An eye for surprise

"Everything inspires me, the people I work with, the people I chat with online," Formichetti says. "And with Gaga, the weird thing is we can always understand each other, sometimes even without words. It's just natural and comfortable, and I like working with creative people like her to always make something the world has never seen."

After taking over the house of Mugler in 2010, "the big fan" of the founder of the house continued his mix-and-match "boundlessly creative style". He changed the brand name from "Thierry Mugler" into a simpler "Mugler", introduced a men's collection and worked with Sebastien Peigne for the women's wear.

In Mugler's fall/winter 2012 collection showed in Singapore, for example, Formichetti and Peigne introduced a range of one-piece dresses with strong but simple architectural lines and bright colors, partly an homage to Mugler's insect-inspired collection in 1997 and partly a tip of the hat to Formichetti's Asian origin.

"I mix more meaning inside this time, which is Asia, it's the aspect of Asia," he says, noting he used the Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto's music as background for his show.

"The collection we just did is different from the one we did in Paris. We made it simpler and a bit cooler, and we also put on few more dresses that we didn't show in Paris," he adds.

Although the Mugler line is yet to be sold in the Chinese mainland, Formichetti has eyed it as an important market, planning to do more exclusive events in China.

For himself, the "big boy" has already has his finger in the pie of China with his "Nicopanda".

"I love panda - people used to call me bear. Since I am an Asian bear, I am a panda. So there is the Nicopanda," he says excitedly as he shows the black-and-white panda ring from his own young fashion line, with a panda tattoo on his arm.

In May, Formichetti launched the "panda line" in the Lane Crawford store in Hong Kong, and one month later, he brought it to Beijing.

Contact the writer at xujunqian@chinadaily.com.cn.

Wu Danli contributed to the story.