Alongside location, casting, beauty and set design, a fashion show soundtrack is one of the main components that can enhance and significantly effect how a collection is portrayed. French-based experimental sound designers MODE-F are key players in
Alexander Maxwell of Mode-F: "Usually we meet with the designer and they'll tell us the story of the collection – we'll look at their sketches and their references. We'll play a selection of tracks and they'll pick their favourites and then we'll go into the studio, usually aiming for a 12-minute mix. Their inspiration can be a favourite track, a mood, an attitude, or a strong icon from the past, Joan Jett for instance. Our job is to make the soundtrack modern and interesting for the audience – we are very aware that this show may be one of twenty or so that week. The music is there to enhance the clothes, not for us to shine as DJs. The production stage involves us composing over the track, cutting, pasting and adding extras; the designers are normally keen for us to experiment. The music becomes a sort of patchwork that they can move around – it's quite different to designing clothes because that's very visual and music is more abstract, you can't really touch it. Designers are often music lovers but they don't have the level of understanding of music that we do; but they do have a taste and a vision and we have to embrace that as much as possible.
All of the designers we work with are different. Jean Paul Gaultier is great – he has about 200 ideas a minute! His changes his mind all of the time but it always ends up working out really well. We've worked with Kris van Asche for a long time and he took us to Dior. He really understands our work and the process is very smooth – he picks a track and ask us to work on it. He really trusts us in the production stages. We supervise the music for Rick Owens' shows – he's a cool guy and very relaxed but it's a very intense process. He always wants the music to be impressive and the loudest it can possibly be."
Alongside location, casting, styling, and set design, a fashion show soundtrack is one of the main components that can enhance and significantly effect how a collection is portrayed. This can include a recognisable selection of tracks often reflecting the designer's main inspirations (for A/W11, Balmain used Bowie and Paul Smith used Patti Smith); atmospheric sounds (often at Rodarte, Comme des Garçons and Jil Sander); a live orchestral performance (for Alexander McQueen had the Academy of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields play Handel's Saraband) or a specially devised mix courtesy of a DJ. French-based experimental sound designers MODE-F are key players in the field, having mixed, rearranged and composed music for designers including Jean Paul Gaultier, Louis Vuitton, Thom Browne, Givenchy, Céline and Yves Saint Laurent.
MODE-F, made up of Nano de Causel, Alexander Maxwell and Laurent Ballot, formed in 2002 after the trio met at School of Audio Engineering. As well as just beginning a season of working on new soundtracks for the upcoming spring/summer 2012 womenswear shows, MODE-F are currently part of W Hotels and burn studios DJ Lab mentorship programme, working with established DJs including Arthur Baker (who previously worked with New Order) to help and advise six rising DJ talents from across the globe.
Text by Laura Bradley
