When Chloé Mendel Corgan was a child, she’d watch intently as her father, fashion designer Gilles Mendel, worked as a guest artisan for the New York City Ballet. “That’s really where I learned construction, how a garment has to move on a body,” says the couture designer and wife of Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan. It’s a skill she relied on later, designing for runways and musicians.

Now the Highland Park resident, who co-founded the House of Gilles atelier with her father in 2023, is channeling her creativity into inventing costumes for a high-profile hybrid of rock concert, opera, and theater. Call it Lyric Opera’s Pumpkin season: A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness, a seven-evening event, marks the 30th anniversary of the fabled double album, recorded in Chicago. Billy will perform his songs with four opera singers, backed by the Lyric orchestra and chorus, set against a moving canvas of digital backdrops. 

For this project, Chloé is working through the House of Gilles, known for its high-end craftsmanship and experimental techniques. One of the more striking details in the production will be the men’s tuxedos, textured with lace and other materials screenprinted onto the fabric. “It’s refined, but with a rock ’n’ roll touch,” she notes.

The album’s duality shapes the mood boards: the turn-of-the-century whimsy of “Tonight, Tonight” balanced by the steampunk edge of “Bullet With Butterfly Wings.” She’s avoided pinning the costumes to any one era: “Billy wanted an art deco fantasy, not a period piece,” Chloé says. That directive freed her and her father to mix silhouettes and finishes — using, for example, iridescent fabrics sourced from French mills that catch the light differently each time someone moves. The goal? To carefully construct a fantasy world that only comes out at night.

A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness runs November 21 to 30 at the Lyric Opera House.