Mugler by Casey Cadwallader in 5 collections that have become cult

Publié le 27 march 2025. Modifié le 30 March 2025.

Casey Cadwallader leaves Mugler

This Tuesday, March 25, 2025, marks the end of an era for Mugler. After seven years of a cloudless idyll, the house and its creative director, the American Casey Cadwallader, are parting ways. A rather expected announcement, which comes at a time of great reshuffle for luxury brands. As evidenced by this strange mercato of artistic directors that has been shaking up the industry for a few months.

And while Mugler has just announced its replacement – Miguel Castro Freitas – Numéro remembers the Casey Cadwallader era through five collections.

Spring-Summer 2020: the affirmation of Casey Cadwallader style

In September 2019, it has been almost two years since Casey Cadwallader arrived as artistic director of Mugler. Presented at the Palais de Tokyo, during Paris Fashion Week, his spring-summer 2020 show proves it: the American designer has definitely found his place, with a collection that skilfully merges the great principles of the French house and his own heritage. We can see it from the first look, very strong, worn by his muse Bella Hadid: a crop blazer worn over a bodysuit and tights, where the structure of the jacket with wide shoulders contrasts elegantly with the mesh that shapes the belly and legs.

Accustomed to sportswear and technical materials, the designer introduces padded cycling leggings, plays with fluid and satin materials, gathered, and the lines traced by the seams and boning of corsets, in a very body conscious perspective. With its inclusive cast, which includes models Raya Martigny and Dustin Muchuvitz as well as performer Kembra Pfahler, Casey Cadwallader is also in the tradition of the house’s founder and celebrates a great diversity of bodies. This show also unveils her first collaboration with jewelry designer Lorette Colé Duprat, who will sign the earrings, bracelets, rings and necklaces for the following seasons.

Spring-Summer 2021: a stunning first film with Hunter Schafer and Dominique Jackson

Digital Fashion Weeks, virtual campaigns and fashion shows… In 2020, due to the pandemic, the fashion industry is forced to adapt to the circumstances. Throughout this first year, Mugler remained rather discreet, until March 31, 2021, when the house unveiled its spring-summer 2021 collection in an explosive video. The first novelty: rather than a presentation a year in advance of the season, as is customary, the collection corresponds to the current season and is immediately available for purchase, embracing the concept of see now, buy now.

The second novelty: the show, filmed and edited by the Torso studio, offers a refreshing dynamism, rarely seen in online presentations of the time. On the sober and dark catwalk, the models oscillate between forward and backward gear, slowed down and accelerated, spinning on themselves, flying in the air or even being splashed, counteracting the usual monotony.

On an extremely well chosen soundtrack, Casey Cadwallader offers pieces of a high-end sensuality. Like bodysuits covered with colored crystals applied like second skins and jerseys that hug the body. The ultra-resistant nylon tulle, which the designer describes as “bulletproof”, allows you to play on empty and full spaces, and continues to assert Mugler jumpsuits and bodysuits as real best-sellers – we will see them on Cardi B, Doja Cat, Yseult, Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus. The cast of this remarkable video includes the two transgender actresses Dominique Jackson, icon of the ballroom scene and star of the series Pose, and Hunter Schafer, revealed by the series Euphoria, who will become the face of Mugler’s Angel Elixir perfume in 2023.

Spring-Summer 2022: Megan Thee Stallion and Chloë Sevigny in a Hollywood production

Building on the success of the videos of his two previous collections for Mugler, Casey Cadwallader is aiming even further by offering a film worthy of a Hollywood production for spring-summer 2022. Who better to embody this incursion into the Los Angeles of the stars than the most fashionable rapper of the moment: Megan Thee Stallion. At the opening, the latter appears in a set that merges two signature elements of the American designer: denim and the openwork jumpsuit thanks to the integration of transparent tulle.

Very quickly, the video takes us to studios in Hollywood where we meet a five-star cast: actress Chloë Sevigny, Madonna’s daughter Lourdes Leon and singer Eartheater, and of course, Bella Hadid. Carried by a choreography that will go viral on TikTok, the film takes us from one set to another, from trapdoors in manholes to the hood of a limousine, where models Shalom Harlow and Amber Valletta exchange a steamy kiss in the moonlight.

As for clothing, the designer further explores technique and sensuality: suit jackets are refined until they become straps laced around the bust, the fluid fabrics in gradient prints of the dresses wrap around plexiglass jewels around the neck – a reference to the spring-summer 1998 haute couture collection –, bright red triumphs, the famous star of the Angel perfume is evoked by the shape that is silhouetted around the chest on a dress… The film closes with a tribute to Manfred Thierry Mugler, who had died a few months earlier: performances by the ballet dancer Maria Kochetkova and the voguing dancer Barbie Swaee, dressed in an archival dress of the couturier. Two generations, two styles, which allow Casey Cadwallader to recall all the contemporaneity of his predecessor.

Fall-Winter 2022-2023: Mugler’s remarkable return to the Parisian catwalks

After the feats of strength of his films, Mugler’s return to the Parisian catwalks had to live up to the demands. It is therefore in the hangar of the Grande Halle de La Villette that Casey Cadwallader invites guests to present his fall-winter 2022-2023 collection. Here, the interplay between the real and the virtual unfolds before the eyes of the spectators: in the centre of the room, we can see a large vertical screen that leads to white stairs, while two tracking rails have been installed parallel to the audience. Thanks to the cameras that move there, everything that happens on the podium will be transcribed live on the screen.

The show is nothing like the classic show. First the singer Arca who steals a guest’s bag and moves on a tracking shot. Then host Ziwe hands the microphone to reality TV star Lisa Rinna. While Dominique Jacksodescends the stairs with a robotic gait. If Casey Cadwallader has already demonstrated his talent for playing between structure and sensuality, he accentuates it even more by offering both pieces with a wide build – XXL down jackets, oversized parkas – and bodysuits and bodycon dresses adorned with lace inserts. Very present in this collection, leather is invited into many garments, which cover but also reveal the legs through clever cut-outs.

Spring-Summer 2024: Scuba Diving and Fans

Casey Cadwallader shares Manfred Thierry Mugler’s fascination with the aquatic world and its wildlife, real or fantastic. Eager to transcribe the grace of these creatures floating underwater, using their fins, tentacles and antennae, the American designer racks his brains. An idea then came to mind for his spring-summer 2024 show. Thus, he will suspend all along the room large black fans that will blow continuously on the models. They will make the ensembles and the pieces of muslin tied in their hair, long as royal trains, fly.

Between the many asymmetrical draped dresses, the imposing blazers and trousers entirely in fringe, or the hundreds of long transparent plastic strips that spring from jumpsuits and tight dresses, the designer’s new collection gives pride of place to movement. Always with his talent for geometrizing and structuring bodies, Cadwallader also presents a series of bustiers sculpted in plexiglass. The latter are reminiscent of Mugler’s famous robot women, as well as padded mini-skirts to support the hips, the designer’s favorite part of the body. As for the casting, the appearance of the rich heiress Paris Hilton surprises and triggers hysteria in the public. After her, Amber Valletta and Helena Christensen also made a highly applauded appearance, not to mention actress Angela Bassett.