There have been many great showgirls of fashion – Gaultier, Galliano, Lagerfeld, McQueen. But the original showgirl, who knew how to dazzle audiences like they’d never been dazzled before, was Thierry Mugler. His 1995 20th anniversary show, for example, is remembered as the “Woodstock of fashion”, and featured over 300 looks, Jerry Hall, fake snow and a performance from James Brown. Like Paris’ spectacular cabarets, Mugler knew how to put on a show. 

Today (Oct 2), Portuguese designer Miguel Castro Freitas made his debut as creative director of the brand, paying homage to showgirls past and present, while honouring fashion’s original entertainer, Mr Mugler. Either that or he’s a massive Swiftie – coincidentally, Taylor Swift’s new album The Life of a Showgirl drops today. After taking over from former creative director Casey Cadwallader in March, all eyes were on Mugler this morning as the fashion crowd gathered in Paris to witness the biggest debut of the day (there are a lot this season). Here’s what went down… 

THIS SEASON WAS THE BEGINNING OF A TRILOGY

Over the past few days, Castro Freitas has been teasing his Mugler moodboard on social media. Last week, he posted an image of La Poupée (the doll), the most notable work of German surrealist artist, Hans Bellmer. Created in the early 1930s, Bellmer’s eerie figures are made from body parts of disassembled dolls, meant to distort the female anatomy. He’s not the first designer to reference the twisted world of La Poupée either; in 1997, Alexander McQueen named an entire collection after the doll series. 

Later, the designer also shared an image of Madame Pruvot, also known as Bambi, the trans showgirl who performed at Le Carrousel de Paris for 20 years. Then, three days ago, came Mugler’s official teaser trailer titled A Trilogy of Glorified Clichés, with a subheading that read: Part I: Stardust Aphrodite. If today’s show was part one, then there are two “glorified clichés” still to come.

For his first chapter, however, Castro Freitas began with the archive. “This collection will have a very unique expression in the sense that it will be part of a trilogy — a trilogy of glorified cliches,” he explained in a recent interview. “At the beginning of this journey [with Mugler], I wanted to be almost archaeological — this discovery of the codes of the house by digging into the archives.” 

GUESTS RETRACED THE STEPS OF PARISIAN SHOWGIRLS…

The morning of the show, lucky invitees made their way across Paris to its 11th arrondissement and arrived at a grand and palatial *checks notes* subterranean car park? As some guests struggled to descend the sloping driveway (designed for car tyres, not six-inch stilettos) chatter ensued about the unique choice of show space. There was nothing obviously remarkable about 6 Passage Saint-Pierre Amelot, the parking lot’s address – but that’s where we were wrong. Almost 100 years ago, 13 Passage Saint-Pierre Amelot was home to the shopfront of Madame Rasimi, Paris’ most successful costume designer and theatre director.

Between 1910 and 1927, Rasimi was director of the iconic Bataclan theatre and popularised the format of the revue show, before opening a huge costume workshop in 1929, which included the shop on Passage Saint-Pierre Amelot. Madame Rasimi designed costumes for all of Paris’ most prominent performers, and while Mugler’s guests thought they were walking into any old car park, they were actually retracing the steps of the city’s most glamorous women, which was a very nice touch. So, is Freitas the new Rasimi, designing costumes for Paris’ modern day showgirls? This show space seems to think so.

WHILE SUPERS AND SHOWGIRLS UNITED ON THE FROW

With at least one showgirl on the moodboard, and another haunting the show space, several more showed up to sit front row. Pamela Anderson, recent star of Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, arrived in a shimmering black gown, her newly-chopped shag dyed a copper-y auburn shade. Veteran showgirl Elizabeth Berkley was also there, whose cult turn as Nomi Malone in 1995’s Showgirls secured her place in cinematic history, as was Drag Race star Gigi Goode, who appeared in a plunging black gown and is a performer who’s no stranger to sequins and pearls.

As well as the showgirls in attendance, Freitas also tapped three 90s modelling legends for this season’s frow: Eva Herzigová, Helena Christensen and Debra Shaw. As well as adding an abundance of glamour to proceedings, their presence helped to connect Freitas’ era with that of the past, as all three were OG muses of Mr Mugler himself. Elsewhere, social media star Emma Chamberlain, model Jordan Barrett, and Project Runway judge Law Roach joined the supers and showgirls on the front row.

FREITAS REMIXED MUGLER’S GREATEST HITS... 

Castro Freitas’ opening look was an impeccably tailored double-breasted skirt suit that split open at the hips like insect’s wings, reminiscent of Thierry Mugler’s SS97 couture collection, Les Insectes. As the first model made her entrance, the voice of Mrs Robinson (the seductive older woman from Mike Nichols’ 1968’s classic, The Graduate) echoed around the room. “Would you like me to seduce you? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” rang the voice of Anne Bancroft, who played the famous temptress. Like Robinson’s mature and seductive demeanour, Castro Freitas’ version of Mugler felt like it could be the demure older sister of Cadwallader’s tenure at the house. 

Similarly to other designers making their debuts at heritage houses this season (Jonathan Anderson at Dior, Simone Bellotti at Jil Sander, Dario Vitale at Versace) the Portuguese designer stayed true to the house’s DNA, while modernising it for today’s audience. Referencing Mugler’s Birds of Paradise collection from 1997, several multicolour feathered looks flapped their way down the runway – one look even gave the impression that the model was becoming a bird (Black Swan-style), replacing her hands with wings. Famously, Thierry Mugler often made his models look as though they were mid-metaphorphosis – god-like creatures that were part women, part nature (bird, insect, clam, etc) – just look at his Chimères dress, which featured a lion’s head, a goat’s body and serpent’s tail. 

Mr Mugler was no stranger to blending technology with design, either. As well as his cyborgs of AW95 (repopularised by Zendaya on the Dune: Part Two red carpet), his 1992 motorcycle corset is also that of legend – referenced in today’s show with handle-bar-shaped straps and silhouettes. The notorious nipple-piercing dress likewise made a grand return, with delicate, lightweight chiffon held up by the models’ nipple piercings, first seen in the late 90s. 

The showgirl theme was continued in the clothes, with more swirling chiffon dresses and flouncy feathered hems. Rather than giving us a typical feathered headdress, a new interpretation looked more like a lion’s mane – harking back to a sense of metamorphosis and to the Chimères dress once again. While the show’s palette featured mostly grey and beige, moments of sparkle brought an element of showgirl glamour. Where Castro Freitas shone the most brightly, however, was in his ability to blend Mugler’s house codes with his own inspirations (even if he is a Swiftie).

AND REVELEAD HIS INSPO POST SHOW

After the lights fell on Passage Saint-Pierre Amelot, Freitas revealed his inspiration for the collection, and, as we suspected, this season was all about the showgirl. “The collection revives old Hollywood glamour and the fetishised cliché of the showgirl, portrayed on the silver screen as a modern goddess and assimilated in the cultural psyche as a temptress assuming various forms,” the designer said in this season’s show notes. He then went on to list women like Marlene Dietrich, the goddess Aphrodite, Anderson in The Last Showgirl and even the Bible’s Salomé as example of historical showgirls, concluding that our “eternal fascination” with them is not just because of feathers and glitter, but “the human contradictions that are often embodied by – or projected onto – their complex characters.”