Excerpt: Mugler. Spring 2025 - Paris Fashion Week

 "Casey Cadwallader's ode to the late Thierry Mugler's dominatrix stylizations carries on, after being appointed to be Mugler's new creative director in 2018, and now over seven years into his tenure has reinvigorated the once hyper-epicurean brand of the 1970s and 1980s.  Cadwallader, in homage, has very much kept the sexulaized avant-garde to which the recently deceased Thierry Mugler, who actually retired in 2002, maintained his creative prose until his passing in 2022, designing mostly fragrances and one off outfits for the the slew of 21st Century stars.  And yet the Mugler brand is no more than a concept, rather than any legacy to the once famed French designer.

So, this poses the question.  Is Cadwallader slowly releasing the Mugler namesake and redefining the late designer's imprint, evolving into something unique and personal to the young American designer?   

A clue in this process of reshaping a signature label, particularly after the death of the Thierry Mugler, could be from the designer himself when he was alive.  After Mugler changed his name to Manfred, persona and physical body and became reclusive after retirement in 2002.   This could be indicative of what branding means in a materistically driven world..."

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(A.Glass 2024)

Full review:  chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/2024/11/mugler-spring-2025-paris-fashion-week.html