Paris–When the lights dimmed on the second floor of the Garage de Turenne yesterday evening in Paris, a male figure emerged on the video wide screen completely covered in a deep blue shining rubber materials. He began to scratch and peel the rubber off of his skin, first from the lower body then towards his face, a moment that signaled the start of the debut Mugler show under the creative direction of Nicola Formichetti. “It’s going to be genius!” “Fabulous” “So talented” were some of the pre-show chatters I heard around the area where I was seating. “On va voir,” (We shall see) was Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele’s response when I asked her if she thinks this new Mugler can be revived at this moment. Then a model emerged onto the raised platform in front of the screen wearing a black suit with a high elbow rubber gloves. Thus began a collection with the title–Anatomy of Change: Mode Sans Frontières. (Borrowed from the organization Médecins sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders.)

What followed was the intersection of an homage to past Mugler style and an effort to update that familiar look with materials like rubber, neoprene, stretch nylon, and reflective pieces.

Was it, as the program notes stated, “saying something about how fashion exists now”?

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