335 i con michel gaubert ph ryan aguilar

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290 i-Con Michel Gaubert TEXT ANDERS CHRISTIAN MADSEN PHOTOGRAPHY RYAN AGUILAR

Michel Gaubert is fashion’s monarch of music and the blunt social media commentator, whose unrelenting Instagram feed puts pop culture into perspective. In an age where everyone with a laptop and a look can be

a guy called Leopold Ross in Los Angeles and we mixed it

a DJ, Michel Gaubert is the kind of man you actually want

together. It was super clever.” Gaubert has been interpreting

to talk to about music. He’s may have both, but unlike his

the work of the world’s biggest designers in music for over

hipster pretenders he won’t namedrop underground bands

two decades, and has a personal archive that counts more

you’ve never heard of or talk about music as if it’s some sort

than 80,000 records and upwards of 400,000 digital tracks.

of esoteric phenomenon you wouldn’t get. “Because I’m a

The fashion landscape, he says, is suffering from a kind of

fashion DJ, or whatever you want to call me, it’s not like

popularisation and its own excess, he designs his show

I’m supposed to know everything. I to listen to stuff that’s

soundtracks to become an integral, memorable and, as a

disposable just like everyone else. If you’re a stylist you

result, almost invaluable part of the collection. “The movie

don’t have to wear Comme every day. Sometimes you need

of 2014 for me was Under the Skin, because it was a like a

to wear a pair of New Balance or Converse,” he instructs

fashion show. Everything was put together in such a way it

over the phone from Paris, his accent continental though

all made one. I listened to the record over and over again,

slightly Americanised.

and that’s what I like to do: when people walk out of the

For a man usually referred to as a ‘sound designer’ by

show, I like it when they want to listen to the music again.”

a reverential fashion press, and who’s hailed as the

Because of Gaubert’s position as the music prophet of

unparalleled champion when it comes to fusing fashion

fashion, he isn’t just bombarded with records throughout

and music – he counts Céline, Chanel, Dior, and Louis

the season (“piles and piles”) but also with the inevitable

Vuitton among his seasonal soundtrack clients – Gaubert

question of who the next big artist will be. It’s a question

is refreshingly relaxed about living up to his reputation.

54-year-old now lives a sober life in Paris when it comes

he says is redundant in a time when people become fads

He’ll talk about the epidemic of mediocrity in music, but

to all things mind-numbing. “I don’t watch TV anymore. I

that last “for a month and then it’s finished.” In fashion as

rolls his eyes at music snobs and their guilty pleasures.

don’t like to be fed all that stuff,” he says. Overload, in all

in music, he’s excited by longevity generated by making a

“My proudest pleasure is watching Beyoncé’s 7/11 video

its representations, is a big aversion in the world of Gaubert.

bigger statement through your platform than simply selling

20 times in a row when it came out, she’s not someone I

Posed with the question of which music stars employ fashion

your product. “Shows can become a social statement, a

especially like, but I thought that video was clever when it

best, he’s at a loss. “All the stuff I see is mostly red carpet

take on our society and what we’re going through. People

came out,” he says. With some 80,000 followers, Gaubert

with celebrities wearing impossible clothes. People go over

like to make clothes nice… and the point has been proven,

has become the fashion industry’s Instagram oracle of

the top, they look like Christmas trees. I think they’re lacking

you know? When Dior created the New Look he made those

pop culture, feeding his fan base a steady stream of daily

a bit of simplicity. Life isn’t so complicated like that.”

big long skirts and was using a lot of fabric right after the

posts commenting ironically on a celebrity culture he’s as

Turn the question around to designers and their musical

war, and the women wearing them were, like, being stoned

astutely opinionated about outside the social media sphere.

ways, however, and it’s an entirely different case. He lists

on the street because they were wasting fabric, and the

If Gaubert’s line between mockery and salute sometimes

Raf Simons, Phoebe Philo, and Karl Lagerfeld as some of

country was poor and all that kind of stuff. But that was a

seems fine, don’t mistake his fixation for fandom. “Fame

fashion’s top music mavens next to Nicolas Ghesquière,

political statement from Dior: ‘the war is over’,” Gaubert

doesn’t ruin music,” he says. “Fame ruins people. All those

whose soundtracks Gaubert has done since the early

says. “Fashion should reflect what we’re going through,

girls and bands.”

Balenciaga days. “The last Louis Vuitton show we did in

because that’s what makes it desirable. That’s how I see it.”

After hitting the party scene hard in his younger days, the

October, Nicolas wanted the sound of silence. I worked with

instagram.com/michelgaubert

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