MUGLER SS26: A NEW ERA OF SEDUCTION UNDERGROUND

Camz
Oct 9
3 min read

A brutalist rebirth in Paris

For Mugler’s new creative director Miguel Castro Freitas, the dream of the brand is, and will always be, Paris. Yet, somewhere in his imagination, Antwerp is never too far away. His debut collection took place in a shadowy brutalist underground car park in the edgy 11th arrondissement, the kind of venue that instantly evoked the conceptual underground shows of the late 1990s. Think of those raw, uncompromising moments when Belgian designers stormed Paris, bringing with them a kind of cold beauty that felt both intellectual and emotional.

Freitas wanted contrast, and he found it. Against the rough concrete and flickering light, his vision of Mugler gleamed with precision. The iconic hourglass silhouette returned, sculpted in strict double-faced wool and satin tailoring, in shades of concrete grey and powdery beige reminiscent of a 1950s T. Leclerc compact. Shoulders carved like architecture, waists cinched to extremes, hips amplified into a kind of wearable fantasy. It was unmistakably Mugler, but through Freitas’s lens, stripped of gloss and made eerily sensual.

The craftsmanship revived

Freitas is clearly on a mission to restore Mugler’s legendary craftsmanship. The attention to detail was surgical, the handiwork exacting. There were jeweled bodices shaped like chandeliers but drained of sparkle, rendered instead in matte tones to match the tailoring. The result was quietly magnificent, as if the shine had been internalised.

Feathers appeared too, and how. A 1940s-inspired marabou jacket looked like something Joan Crawford would wear in Mildred Pierce if she had decided to go slightly mad. Another piece erupted in exotic plumes, half human, half bird, as though the model was caught mid metamorphosis. It was theatrical, yes, but never garish. You could feel that Freitas understood the Mugler woman not as a spectacle, but as a creature of mystery and transformation.

The challenge of legacy

Freitas’s debut arrives at a time of creative renewal across fashion’s biggest houses. The pressure is immense. How do you make a name for yourself while carrying the weight of a brand as monumental as Mugler ? As he explained earlier this week, his answer lies in cinema. Like Thierry Mugler before him, he finds his creative anchor in the Golden Age of Hollywood. But his lens is darker, more reflective of the 1990s era of Flemish deconstruction.

Yes to the va-voom Mugler heroines, yes to sculptural tailoring, but also yes to a new kind of sensuality, the one that hides rather than screams, that seduces through restraint rather than exaggeration. In that tension between Hollywood glamour and Antwerp minimalism lies Freitas’s signature.

A fusion of fantasy and control

On the runway, that dialogue came to life. Minimalist second-skin bodysuits paired with skirts exploding in feathers.

Black patent dresses with nipped waists and exaggerated hips, coats so precise they could cut glass. One of the standout pieces, a black leather dress with a scrolled rosette motif, featured an off-the-shoulder neckline that floated away from the body, as if inflated from within.

Elsewhere, gleaming gold pantsuits with integrated gloves shimmered under the dim light.

A celestial silver stars adorned sheer dresses and bodysuits like Mugler’s own constellations.

Every look screamed red carpet. You could already picture them: the singers, the actresses, the new generation of divas stepping out into the flashlights draped in Freitas’s vision of Mugler power.

The promise of light

If this debut was a statement, it was also a promise. Freitas showed his ability to honor Mugler’s myth while speaking the language of now. His tailoring is immaculate, his ideas coherent, his understanding of sensuality deeply intelligent. Yet, there is a feeling that the next step should take Mugler out of the shadows, both literally and metaphorically.

Today’s underground setting offered a striking contrast, but one could not help longing to see this new Mugler under daylight, where every curve, feather and sculpted seam could fully breathe. Because if this first act is any indication, Miguel Castro Freitas is not here to mimic Mugler’s past, he is here to rewrite its future.

And in that future, the lights will not flicker, they will shine.

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