In His Own World: Casey Cadwallader’s Mugler Takes Shape
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LONDON — It’s been five years since American designer Casey Cadwallader was unveiled as the artistic director of French fashion house Mugler.
During his tenure, he has revamped the house to create a different kind of buzz — one that veers from the theatrics of founder Thierry Mugler with a more demure take on the brand’s design codes on what celebrating the body could mean.
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“So much has changed, I remember the very beginning, walking into an office with a team and adding to that team and watching them flourish,” Cadwallader told WWD, crediting success to the people he works with.
“Learning what Mugler is over time and adapting to it myself. In a way I became Mugler over like four years and it’s such a funny thing to watch that process. I feel like I’ve grown up a lot and Mugler has grown up a lot; we have so many more people on the team now,” Cadwallader said.
His success has brought him to London to baptize the four-week-long opening of “Body Spaces,” a pop-up with Selfridge’s Corner Shop sampling the best bits of Mugler in the brand’s signature hue of lilac blue, including select pieces from the fall 2022 and spring 2023 collections, limited-edition fragrances and festive gifts.
“I remember the channel FashionTV when growing up and I saw Mugler shows there,” reminisced Cadwallader, about his introduction to his current position.
His older sister was a George Michael disciple, which also helped, he said. “I definitely remember the ‘Too Funky’ music video as a standout, that was how I knew that Mugler was this fascinating thing over there in Paris, but I didn’t know someday I would be a part of it,” he said.
“I come from New Hampshire in the U.S., pretty small town, and I was very connected to the television because I was trying to absorb as much culture as I could from that box,” said Cadwallader, in his softly spoken accent, with more the mannerisms of an architect than a fashion designer.
He has a degree in architecture from Cornell University that helps guide his current practice, especially when it comes to being conscious of waste, contours of the body and using design as a means to manipulate the eye.
“It’s always a race, even if the collection is small, it’s very technically challenging what we do, and also very precise,” he said. He questions everything around him and the benefits behind decisions — he calls it a “very architect way to think.”
Cadwallader only designs two collections per year, and since the pandemic, he’s moved away from the traditional runway and has opted for video formats.
“I just made a promise to myself and the world that I would not make a boring fashion video so that it became this pursuit of, how can we make this crazy thing that takes the runway and breaks it apart and makes it full of surprises and entertainment,” he said.
“There’s something very different with the film, where Bella Hadid can stare you down through the camera, and you can feel her. You feel her when she walks by on the runway too, but it’s very different to look into someone’s eyes and to also be able to do things that you can’t do live very easily like stunts and CGI,” Cadwallader said.
For Mugler’s previous three collections, Cadwallader has been working with film director Torso on a trilogy of films, leaving him in full control of the narrative he puts out there, from the visual language to overarching storytelling of the brand — but the hardest part is letting his cast go, which has featured Dominique Jackson, Megan Thee Stallion, Chloë Sevigny and Hunter Schafer.
“We said that the films were a trilogy, meaning ‘Is that it?’ putting the question mark into people’s minds,” he said. He has no intention to snap back to the way things were before the COVID-19 pandemic, and said he loves what he’s doing because he doesn’t really pay attention to what other people are doing. His priority remains to push new formats.
Cadwallader often starts with the Mugler archive as a touchpoint for its many different flavors and themes.
“And then what I bring to that is much more personal. I research anything from the shape of a car fender to remind me of the shape of a dress hip, to modern art and antiquities. I look at a lot of auctions and kind of end up with a mood board that’s all these different things that I’m really personally attracted to and somehow that informs the print or materiality of the season,” he said, explaining that being subjective is the way to “end up doing something that’s your own direction and it’s so important to stay in your own lane.”
Staying in his own path doesn’t mean Cadwallader is not open to collaborating. In February, he partnered with Jimmy Choo’s Sandra Choi on a footwear collection, where she said “Casey is shoe-obsessed, I found my soulmate.”
Cadwallader, a discreet dresser in head to toe black with a cap and silver necklace, has one secret obsession: watches. He only owns one watch, but has a photo album dedicated to them on his mobile, from vintage 1920s Patek Philippe to Audemars Piguet.
“It would be my honor and I would love to collaborate on a watch for sure [with Patek Philippe],” he said, adding that he would jump first to “look at the ones from the 1920s. They make some really good ones now, of course, but my favorites are the old ones.”
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