April 1, 2021 |
Take body-con and make it avant-garde. That’s what Casey Cadwallader’s mission is at Mugler. His super-powered aesthetic reinterprets the founder’s legacy for a high-tech blockbuster age. These are looks designed to go viral, whether it’s Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B or Bella Hadid showing off in them.
But Cadwallader is about way more than just enhancing the awesomely beautiful bodies of our age. He’s political too. Body-con means something more than just sexy titillation when you put it on trans bodies, curvy bodies, non-binary bodies, racially diverse bodies or age-diverse bodies.
The designer talked about the “power and the glory” of the cast for his ‘backwards’ fashion show and he wasn’t exaggerating. Amongst those giving epic runway turns were: Euphoria’s Hunter Schafer, Pose star Dominique Jackson, kickass action heroine Omahyra Mota, Ajok Madel, Bella Hadid, Soo Joo Park, Irina Shayk, Patia Borja, Kembra Pfahler and Alek Wek.
Cadwallader was inspired by comic book heroines and his models looked like Marvel heroines in his transparent and cutaway, second-skin pieces, designed to accentuate and exaggerate anatomical curves. It was tight but not trite. Body-con, in this context on these people, isn’t just performative, it’s proactive, empowered, sex-positive and political. It’s also available to buy right now on the Mugler site.
Photography courtesy of Mugler.
