Long before Casey Cadwallader put pencil to paper to sketch out designs for the runway and stadium show-stealing fashions he’s now acclaimed for, the objects of his fascination were cars. “My parents liked to drive a lot, and so my father and I used to talk about the cars that would pass on the road,” he reminisces while sat in the Paris headquarters of Mugler, the esteemed fashion house he’s been the creative director of since 2018. “I was always inclined towards drawing, so I started to draw and design cars – their logos, even the branding… Designing a car was very pleasant, because it was futuristic. It was exciting. It went fast. It had curves.”

Granted, growing up in rural New Hampshire in the 90s, cars were a more readily available source of creative inspiration than fashion was. But hearing him reflect on his early obsessions, you can’t help but think that he was always destined for the job he now holds – one in which he, by his own admission, designs “clothes with curves for people that go fast.”

It wasn’t until his early adulthood that his instinct for fashion crystallised into a formal career pursuit, but each step he took along his path – whether his early rock collecting obsession, his surprisingly lucrative teen job at a local jewellery store, and his eventual choice to pursue an architecture degree at Cornell – seems to have steered him towards it. The most significant factor in that respect, however, was less raw creative instinct and more a desire to articulate a nascent queer identity that felt at odds with the contexts he occupied, and recognition of fashion’s potential to express it.

“I guess it was in high school, when I was about 16, that I started listening to techno, and that was also around the time I was really starting to explore personal expression,” he recalls. “I had longer hair with shaved sides – kind of like a T-Boz from TLC vibe – and I was wearing things that weren't quite what the other boys were wearing. It was something that I got called out for, and kind of gay-bashed, too.” 

Despite the animosity he faced, Casey remained adamant in his intent to self-determine. Arriving at boarding school, he leant full-tilt into experimenting with style. “The first thing I did was dye my hair leopard spots, because I was inspired by a DJ named Keoki, and then eventually dyed my hair red and started wearing pleather pants,” he says, eventually coming out, and then fully stepping into his identity upon enrolling on Cornell’s prestigious architecture programme. 

While there, Casey quickly developed an interest in “how clothing, furniture and architecture are built,” he explains, paying particular attention to work by the likes of Hussein Chalayan, Alexander McQueen and Charles James. Eventually, he and a group of fellow architecture students petitioned to be able to take an elective on Cornell’s fashion programme, a decision which – aided by an introduction via a close friend – culminated in Casey winning a summer internship at Marc Jacobs in New York. 

Arriving in the city was, as for so many, a moment of awakening for Casey. For the fashion, sure, but also the city’s renownedly rich house and techno culture. A swift regular at clubs like Twilo, Palladium and Tunnel – even doing a stint as a dancer at the latter – he quickly became immersed in the underground party culture that has remained a key undercurrent of his work to date. 

His journey since then is well chronicled, seeing him hop between the United States and Europe, taking up increasingly senior roles at houses including Narciso Rodriguez, Loewe and Acne Studios. In 2018, he was appointed to his current role at Mugler, immediately making a splash for his svelte, inclusive and uncompromisingly sexy vision for the legendary house. His work was met with immediate critical acclaim, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that his reputation skyrocketed. While others floundered for ways to present their collections, Casey chose to create a series of spellbinding films starring the likes of Dominique Jackson, Bella Hadid and Hunter Schafer, directed by David Toro and Solomon Chase of DIS. 

Overnight, Casey’s work became the unofficial preserve of seemingly every female superstar – his graphic, curvilinear jumpsuits in particular becoming a staple in the tour wardrobes of everyone from Dua Lipa to Megan Thee Stallion, Yseult to Beyoncé. While his work has had a broad appeal in the mainstream, one of the most noteworthy aspects of his creative output is the extent to which he’s integrated artists emblematic of the contemporary cultural underground into it – whether collaborating with Ashland Mines (FKA DJ Total Freedom) on his shows floor-shaking soundtracks, or casting agenda-setting trans models like Raya Martigny and Memphy on his runways. Rather than fetishise subcultural communities, his Mugler has become an elevatory platform, bringing cutting edge cultural production to broad new audiences while respecting its integrity.

In this episode, Casey discusses his journey to the heights of the industry, dancing as catharsis, and the logic behind his boundary-pushing approach to casting.