The Life of a Showgirl, Mugler Spring 2026
PetitePaulina – Is the showgirl to 2025 what the cowboy was to 2024? With fashion continuing to shadow music and pop culture, Taylor Swift’s anticipated project The Life of a Showgirl is already shaping aesthetic conversations. It promises to flood the fashion scene with rhinestones, sequins, and the unapologetic glamour of stage life.
For his first collection as Mugler’s creative director, Miguel Castro Freitas leaned into this cultural moment with a lineup he called Stardust Aphrodite. Staged in an underground Parisian parking garage, the setting echoed the grit-meets-glamour duality of showgirl mythology.
A Front Row of Icons
The guest list reminded everyone that the showgirl archetype is timeless. Elizabeth Berkley, forever linked to the cult film Showgirls, sat alongside Pamela Anderson, who recently embodied a fading dancer in The Last Showgirl. Their presence grounded the theme in pop nostalgia while highlighting how the showgirl has remained a potent symbol of resilience, fantasy, and performance.
The reference to founder Thierry Mugler’s legacy was unmistakable. His career blurred the boundaries between fashion and theatrical spectacle, reaching a peak with his legendary Mugler Follies cabaret revue. Freitas, while clearly inspired, avoided simply recycling archival hits. Instead, he sought to channel the DNA of Mugler through a contemporary lens.
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Tailoring Meets Camp
Unlike the glitter-heavy expectations that the “showgirl” theme might suggest, Freitas emphasized tailoring. Camel and beige hourglass suits recalled Mugler’s Insects collection, but also nodded to Martin Margiela’s experiments with mannequins and structure. Vinyl skirts and padded-waist trousers gave the silhouettes a futuristic twist, while sheer bodystockings created a second-skin illusion.
Still, Freitas couldn’t resist sprinkling in Hollywood glamour. A feather headdress worthy of Linda Evangelista’s Too Funky moment appeared, alongside a nude gown crowned with an ostrich-feather skirt that channeled Ginger Rogers. These elements underscored Freitas’ fascination with cinema’s golden age and the theatrical excess that Mugler himself adored.
The Missing Spark
Yet, while the technical execution impressed, something essential felt absent. Thierry Mugler celebrated women’s power and sensuality with a mixture of awe and joy. Even when accused of setting impossible beauty standards, his designs never veered into vulgarity. By contrast, Freitas’ attempts at provocation—like fringe tops revealing pointed nipples—felt more like shock value than reverence.
Where was the sense of fun, of divine exaggeration, of fantasy without apology? Casey Cadwallader, Freitas’ predecessor, often infused the collections with that spirit. Without it, Stardust Aphrodite sometimes read more like a study of contrasts than a celebration of the showgirl’s unapologetic vitality.
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Even Showgirls Have Shadows
The Mugler Spring 2026 collection is bold, campy, and deeply aware of cultural currents. It honors Mugler’s theatrical DNA while daring to modernize. But the show also acknowledges a darker truth: even showgirls, symbols of sparkle and survival, can carry a melancholy beneath the feathers and rhinestones.
In that sense, Freitas’ debut may be less about nostalgia and more about redefining what the showgirl means in 2025 — not just an icon of fantasy, but a reflection of complexity, resilience, and reinvention.
