As it turns out, those movies are crucial for all sorts of reasons for the Portuguese Castro Freitas, 45, who joined Mugler at the end of March, his stellar résumé including work at Dior (with both John Galliano and Raf Simons), Dries Van Noten, Alber Elbaz’s Lanvin, and, most recently, the behind-the-scenes creative directorship of Sportmax (which he says, allowed him to take on a lead role without the attendant pressures of being thrust into the spotlight — a perfect trial run for his new job). The DVDs are destined to be part of the invitations for his debut show.
“Which one would you like?” I’m asked. “Oh, surprise me,” I say, though secretly I am hoping for the 1961 Jacques Demy Lola, as I’ve never seen it. (“One of my favourites,” Castro Freitas tells me a bit later. “Have you watched Demy’s Bay of Angels? It’s lovely.”) There’s a more crucial reason for having all these movies at hand, though: Castro Freitas says he shares Mugler’s love of classic Hollywood, which proved an immediate way to find common ground with him. (The designer’s all-time top three, incidentally, are Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve and Some Like It Hot.) Movies are both inspiration for his debut collection, entitled ‘Aphrodite Stardust’, and integral to his working practices more generally.
“I like to have keywords on my mood board,” explains Castro Freitas. “They evoke the mood of the collection [as much as the images] — they’re very sensorial to me.”
Photo: Valentino Barbieri/ Courtesy of Mugler
Showgirls across the decades are a big part of his thinking for the collection.
Photo: Valentino Barbieri/ Courtesy of Mugler
“I like to have keywords on my mood board,” explains Castro Freitas. “They evoke the mood of the collection [as much as the images] — they’re very sensorial to me.” On the mood board at the moment, much inspired by his cineaste interests: Kitsch Glamour, Stardust, Poetic Camp, Nocturnal and Purist Maximalism, to give you just a few, all of them pinned up alongside images of classic Mugler, such as a Helmut Newton photo of a star-spangled, bodysuit-clad Eva Herzigová looking like a showgirl — showgirls across the decades are a big part of his thinking for the collection — as well as the likes of hip-jutting Jacques Fath cocktailania, Judy Garland, spooky Hans Bellmer artwork, the corsetière Mr Pearl, ’90s Martin Margiela (bet you weren’t expecting that), Jayne Mansfield (he loved the recent Mariska Hargitay documentary, and he’s obsessed with Mansfield’s former home, the now demolished Pink Palace), and Guinevere Van Seenus in a scarlet-draped and crushed mimi-crinoline Galliano dress shot by David Sims in 1996 (bet you weren’t expecting that either).