Everyone has a front-row seat to Mugler’s Fall/Winter 2021 runway show. For the second season in a row, the house’s creative director, Casey Cadwallader, opted to ditch the traditional catwalk-based show for a video presentation, one that puts viewers in the middle of the spectacle, and the result is uniquely Mugler.

Bella Hadid, Lourdes “Lola” Leon, Amber Valletta, and more models pound down the runway to intense beats in tight-fitting bodysuits, illusion tops, and chain-draped dresses. At times, the models are seen with a white morphsuit posse behind them, mimicking the models movements or showing off their own looks. Other times, those shadow figures catch the models as they suddenly fall, only to be mysteriously lifted back up again.

“There was just this big part of me that was like, I cannot go back to doing a regular show, I would need people to jump out of cakes or something,” Cadwallader told CR Fashion Book. “You can’t do those things live very easily, but in a video, you can do whatever you want.”

The eight-minute long video, created by Torso Solutions is a perfect setting for the fall/winter collection, which shows off Cadwallader’s newest fabric, “techno jersey,” described by the designer as “this weird sort of part velvet, part vinyl, amazingly shiny, stretchy fabric.” And thanks to Mugler’s see-now-buy-now model, the technological advancement continues with the ability to shop the looks on the brand’s site, mere moments after watching the show. “I just want to connect the client to that moment of desire,” Cadwallader told Vogue.

Of course, some things in the fashion industry never change, like anchoring a presentation with big names like Hadid, Valletta, and Leon. While Valletta and Leon have been very busy this season, the Mugler show marks Hadid’s first in a while, after opting out of most of fashion month this year. The star of the show, however, is undeniably Cadwallader, who unveils himself as the man behind the morphsuit at the end of the video, pulling the strings the entire time.

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Originally posted from “W Magazine” by Carolyn Twersky