{"id":66653,"date":"2018-06-19T13:30:07","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T13:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=66653"},"modified":"2018-07-24T12:02:51","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T12:02:51","slug":"michel-gaubert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/michel-gaubert\/","title":{"rendered":"An interview with Michel Gaubert, fashion’s best-loved soundman"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\" Michel Gaubert backstage at Moschino, Milan, photo: Ryan Aguliar<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n\u201cMusic and fashion were made for each other,\u201d says Michel Gaubert. But then, he probably would say that. The French noise provocateur is the industry\u2019s best-loved soundman, known for his encyclopaedic musical knowledge, a list of clients that reads like Anna Wintour\u2019s phonebook and his trademark dad-style reflective sunglasses. He\u2019s worked with the biggest names in the business including Balenciaga, Chanel, Chlo\u00e9, Dior, Fendi, Loewe, Louis Vuitton, Dries Van Noten and Valentino, among others, and boasts a long-lasting friendship and working partnership with Karl Lagerfeld. Having started his career in 1978 as a buyer for an independent record shop in Paris called Champs Disques, Gaubert\u2019s skills are today are like gold dust in fashion, and any designer in their right mind would jump at the chance to collaborate with him.
\nWhen I talk to Gaubert, the first-round of the annual fashion week-cycle has finished. But for this 60 year old, work seemingly never stops. \u201cI\u2019m working on the Cruise collections, they\u2019re happening next month.\u201d he reveals. It\u2019s a full-time job for one brand to labour over the never-ending cycle of Cruise\/Resort\/Spring\/Autumn\/Ready-to-Wear collections, but when your client list is as extensive as Gaubert\u2019s, the workload is duplicated by the dozens. \u201cThe process is hugely different from one designer to another,\u201d Gaubert explains. \u201cSome designers build their whole collection around music, others don\u2019t think about it until three or four days before the show.\u201d With such hectic ways of working, Gaubert\u2019s job is to slot in when he\u2019s needed, which means his life has to revolve around sound as well as the relentless fashion calendar. To make life easier, he has over 2,000 days\u2019 worth of music on his iTunes, so is always well-equipped for the next project.<\/p>\n

\"\" Chanel AW18, photo: Olivier Saillant<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nGaubert\u2019s love for music began in childhood. \u201cI fell in love with music when I was very little,\u201d he endearingly admits. Growing up in a household that always appreciated music \u2013 jazz, Serge Gainsbourg, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones \u2013 it\u2019s easy to see how Gaubert\u2019s own life-soundtrack shaped his diverse musical interest. But it was David Bowie who cemented his passion: \u201cHe was the person who taught me that music was more than music.\u201d
\nGaubert fell into the Paris DJ circuit in the Eighties, spinning everything from Reggae to New Wave, Rock and Pop, and soon be- came known for his eclectic taste. \u201cOther DJs were playing more specialised stuff,\u201d he remembers, \u201cbut I didn\u2019t want to be like that. I wanted to do a bit of everything.\u201d He stumbled into the fashion world by happy coincidence. \u201cIt was an accident,\u201d he admits. \u201cI got approached to do one fashion show, and then I got caught in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

And thank god he did. He\u2019s the man responsible for overseeing that 80-piece orchestra at Chanel\u2019s Spring\/Summer 2011 show, as well as producing the sound for Fendi\u2019s “Great Wall of China” catwalk in 2007. His talent for juxtaposing samples, constructing soundscapes and his no-holds-barred approach to curation has earned Gaubert the trust of multiple couture houses. Above all, he works closely with designers to cultivate a brand identity through sound. When Michel Gaubert wants to soundtrack an event with Frank Ocean\u2019s \u201cPyramids\u201d – as he did at Louis Vuitton\u2019s Paris Fashion Week event at the Louvre in March last year – who\u2019s to question him? He\u2019s frequently dubbed a ‘sound artist’, but Gaubert rejects this description. \u201cI don\u2019t consider myself an artist,\u201d he explains. \u201cI have artistic sensibilities and creative sensibilities, but I\u2019m not an artist.\u201d What he actually sees himself as is an aural curator. \u201cI bring music alive with images, I create atmosphere.\u201d He crafts these sonic moods by interlacing music and samples, chopping and changing tracks as he sees fit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Music in fashion is about more than providing a beat for models to walk to. \u201cMusic has a lot to do with style, and the way you show yourself, and I think that\u2019s part of fashion,\u201d says Gaubert. And, as he\u2019s quick to point out, music itself often forms the foundation of a collection. Raf Simons, for example, has created several collections influenced by Peter Saville’s designs for Factory Records, home of Joy Division and New Order. Such explicit musical references in fashion make Gaubert\u2019s job easy, but when inspiration springs from elsewhere, the process has to be different. \u201cI mostly work with moodboards,\u201d he explains. \u201cA designer shows me a collage of images and their inspiration \u2014 a movie, a place somewhere in the world, a plant, it could be whatever. And then I take it from there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a strange thing to put so much work into perfecting an event that\u2019s over in a matter of minutes, but such is the nature of the runway. Thanks to YouTube, of course, 10 minute catwalk shows can now exist online forever, but the atmosphere can never translate to video. \u201cIt\u2019s very diluted,\u201d Gaubert affirms, \u201cit\u2019s never the same.\u201d But the contrast is even more acute when it comes to sound. \u201cA lot of people are doing more elaborate set design because it\u2019s more attention grabbing, and it\u2019s very much a part of the image. But for the sound it’s very different,\u201d Gaubert explains. This is down to copyright: fashion is mono-branded, but sound isn\u2019t. \u201cI\u2019d say half the time, we can\u2019t get the copyright,\u201d Gaubert reveals. This makes it impossible for the show\u2019s full components to be conveyed online. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely rare that you\u2019d see a fashion show on a website that has the full music.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately, this was not the case with Chanel for the ma\u00eeson\u2019s Paris Fashion Week catwalk this year, set against a woodland backdrop staged inside the Grand Palais. The full event can be relived online, with a soundtrack featuring the French psychedelic-indie duo, The Limi\u00f1anas, and supplemented by A.R Kane and Erol Alkan. \u201cWe decided we didn\u2019t want to do a poetic forest thing, you know,\u201d Gaubert explains. \u201cThe music was really rocky.\u201d This \u201cwe\u201d refers to Gaubert and long-time friend Karl Lagerfeld, who came across the young DJ when he was working in Champs Disques. The pair have since developed a partnership that extends beyond fashion. \u201cIt\u2019s a dream,\u201d Gaubert says. \u201cIt means so much more to me than just a work relationship. Karl is very witty, he\u2019s lots of fun and he trusts me intensely, so that\u2019s very rewarding.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\" Michel Gaubert at Calvin Klein, Sterling Ruby, photo: Ryan Aguliar<\/p>\n

Despite his presumed acquaintance with anyone-who\u2019s-anyone in the fashion industry, Gaubert insists he\u2019s always excited to meet new designers. \u201cIt\u2019s not that I\u2019d be dying to work with someone,\u201d he explains, \u201cbut I always like to meet new people and discover new experiences.\u201d And there\u2019s one fashion figure with whom he\u2019s yet to make contact. \u201cI\u2019d\u00a0Liebe<\/em> to meet Donatella Versace,\u201d he admits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though Gaubert remains silent about his upcoming projects (all firmly under wraps), he is willing to impart some musical recommendations. \u201cI love the new Nicolas Jaar release,\u201d he tells us, in a soft French accent that makes the experimental artist\u2019s name sound infinitely more beautiful, \u201cand King Krule just did a cover of Connan Mockasin\u2019s \u201cForever Dolphin Love\u201d \u2014 I really like that.\u201d Whether they\u2019ll be worked into one of Gaubert\u2019s upcoming shows, we\u2019ll have to wait and see, but what we can expect is a thoughtful dialogue between music and fashion. As Gaubert says, revising his opening statement, \u201cI don\u2019t know if they\u2019re made for each other, but they reply to each other.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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He\u2019s couture\u2019s best-kept secret\u2014the man behind the soundtracks for some of fashion\u2019s most ambitious catwalks, who shares mixes with Karl Lagerfeld and pokes fun at the fashion industry from his 280k-followed Instagram. But who is Michel Gaubert?<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66787,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[188,122,1763,212,5129],"class_list":["post-66653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fashion","tag-chanel","tag-fashion-week","tag-karl-lagerfeld","tag-louis-vuitton","tag-michel-gaubert"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\nAn Interview with Michel Gaubert, Fashion's Best-Loved Soundman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In an interview taken from the latest issue of SLEEK, we talk to Michel Gaubert, the man who creates soundtracks for some of fashion\u2019s most ambitious shows\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/michel-gaubert\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Interview with Michel Gaubert, Fashion's Best-Loved Soundman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In an interview taken from the latest issue of SLEEK, we talk to Michel Gaubert, the man who creates soundtracks for some of fashion\u2019s most ambitious shows\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/michel-gaubert\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sleek Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sleekmag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-06-19T13:30:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-07-24T12:02:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Verfasst von\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sleek\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Gesch\u00e4tzte Lesezeit\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7\u00a0Minuten\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sleek Magazine\",\"description\":\"Sleek is Germany\u2019s leading independent media house\/brand for creativity and innovation located in Berlin the creative capital of the world. 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