How do you commit sound to paper? If you’re not adroit at reading music, it’s a tricky endeavour. That’s why the sound director Michel Gaubert – the man responsible for some of the most memorable music at fashion shows over the past three decades – approached his first book, Remixed, as a memoir rather than a greatest hits, producing not one of fashion’s typical, picture-packed decorative tomes but a text-dense chronicle of his life and loves – namely, fashion and music. And, of course, in looking back, you automatically rethink and rework your own past – which is where the ‘remix’ idea comes in.
Gaubert’s career began in the late 1970s, working as a buyer at an independent record store called Champs Disques, located at 84 Avenue des Champs-Élysées, between 1972 and 1995. Karl Lagerfeld bought records there by the armful, connecting Gaubert with one of his most fruitful collaborators (although he had already DJ-ed at the nightclub Le Palace, where fashion’s leading designers were habitués). His book, written alongside Jennifer Murzeau and Joseph Ghosn, charts all that. At least, so Gaubert told me – it’s currently only available in French, and I’m definitely not up to the challenge of translation. An English language version is hopefully out this Autumn.
What I could recognise is that the title for each chapter is taken from a song – “clichés,” Gaubert tells me. “They’re not my favourite songs. London Calling is not my favourite song about London.” The exception being a chapter chronicling the Aids crisis of the 1980s. “This whole era was so dark, we were losing people every day, and people were leaving,” he recalls. “And on the other side, the fashion was so bold and brash and excessive. So it was very disturbing.”
Disturbing, but important. What this autobiography does is to chart history and reflect a moment, something Gaubert states he always seeks to do with his work. The next task, after Chanel’s forthcoming cruise show, and the men’s and couture seasons? Maybe that coffee table book. “It could play sound or have QR codes,” Gaubert reasons. “So that’s maybe the next project.”
Alexander Fury: What motivated you to write Remixed, at this point?
Michel Gaubert: I was given the opportunity. Éditions Fayard approached me and said, “We’d like to do a book with you. Do you want to write a book?” And I was like, “OK.” And then it didn’t resonate with me for a while. But after thinking about it, I asked around, and people said, “You have to do it.” I wrote some of it, obviously, but also had people help me to write, to help me shape it, make sense of the whole thing. It was quite ... it was like going to see a psychologist.
AF: What was it that you wanted to convey or express with the book?
MG: I wanted to express what I do because it’s very hard ... a lot of people don’t really understand it. They think you play a record, and that’s it. I want to let people know it doesn’t happen like this, and I also wanted to express the way I was thinking about it and the way it came to me. Because it’s probably the way I was brought up and what I lived.
I was going to England in the early 1970s. I was so happy to be in London because I could go equally to record stores, but I wanted to go to the King’s Road, Kensington Market, and Antony Price, the store. Fashion was part of my music world.
Early on, I realised that I liked the way musicians expressed themselves and what they wore. To me, fashion and music are ... inextricable. I like fashion, I like art, and I like music, and I like to conjugate them together. And of course, maybe I wanted to give a few secrets of the trade, explain why I think that way. And I have enough anecdotes from a lot of people, which was interesting too.
AF: Do you have a favourite anecdote from the book?
MG: There’s one with Karl [Lagerfeld], where the book opens. I only worked with him maybe once or twice for the Lagerfeld brand – I didn’t do Chanel. And one day, it was the end of fashion week and for some satanic reason, I was walking down the Rue Cambon. Don’t ask me why. I come home, take a shower, a sleeping pill, go to bed, and the phone rings. It’s Karl.
“I just heard the music that we’re going to play for the show tomorrow and it’s so horrible. I don’t want to play it. You have to help me. You have to.” So I said, “Well, I just took a sleeping pill …”
“Don’t worry, don’t worry. My friend, she’s an expert. She’s going to help you.” We just played music all night, and then I went to do the show. And I really like this anecdote because for two things, because it proves that someone like Karl Lagerfeld would put so much emphasis [on music]. I mean, to change the night before. Okay, let’s gamble, let’s do that. And also, I like it because it’s the fact he trusted me.
AF: How instrumental was Karl Lagerfeld in your career?
MG: I knew Karl socially before I worked with him. And I also knew Jacques [de Bascher], of course. And before that, I was a bit … not like Jacques, but I was more like a party boy. And then towards ‘87, ‘88, I said, okay, stop all of this. I’m not feeling good about myself. I want to do something else, and I want to get myself better. And then Karl just called me in September 1989. Eric Wright came to the store where I was working and said, “Karl would like you to do the music for the show. Would you be up to it?” And then without thinking, I said, “Of course, no problem.” Then I panicked.
“To me, fashion and music are ... inextricable. I like fashion, I like art, and I like music, and I like to conjugate them together” – Michel Gaubert
AF: You hadn’t done anything like that before?
MG: No, I didn’t do any major shows like that. Karl was like ten steps above, in my head. I soon realised that after the first show we did together, he was super easy to talk to and very collaborative. And he changed me, because that gave me more confidence. And so I quit my day job that I was doing, and I just kept on doing what I’m doing now.
AF: In terms of working with designers, is it different with each of them?
MG: It depends. Some people are very focused on what they want. Others have a moodboard – it doesn’t happen much anymore that we look at clothes together. It’s really more a mood. Some designers want to have the music ready a long time in advance because it helps them. Some people work a long time in advance, but they don’t make up their mind until the day before. It’s very different – everyone has their own approach.
AF: I guess it’s the same when designers are working on collections; sometimes they’re ready very far ahead, other times people are changing things right until the models walk out.
MG: Karl could do that, change three or four days before. Phoebe [Philo] could do that too, at Céline. She would go through several variations. Raf [Simons] was pretty steady. Nicolas [Ghesquière] is the one who started the longest time in advance.
AF: Was Nicolas listening to Princess Stéphanie of Monaco for three months? Because one of my favourite catwalk soundtracks ever is when you played her 1986 single Ouragan [at Balenciaga, Spring/Summer 2001].
MG: That just happened ... The collection, all the white things, very mid-80s. And the music before was very electronic, and then I thought, oh my God, this is like a video game. And Nicolas was talking about some kind of princess, but more like Princess Leia, and I just went, “Well, Princess Stéphanie.” And he and Marie-Amélie [Sauvé, the show’s stylist] said, “Bingo!” A lot of people were like, “Oh my God.” That’s the fun thing when you associate sound and image, it can take you somewhere where you don’t think you would’ve gone to.
AF: I never knew the thing of princesses leading to Princess Stéphanie. I like the obviousness of that.
MG: It’s also like a guilty pleasure. We all have tacky songs that we like to listen to, because that’s what they’re for. A tacky song is very disposable, very lift-you-up. And a lot of people said, “Oh my God, we can’t play that in a fashion show.” Even at the beginning of Chanel, for me, it was very important to play music that was coming from the voguing world because all those fashion brands were becoming very powerful in the late 80s and had so much influence. And when I saw Paris Is Burning, I said, “Well, let’s give them back. Let’s have an exchange,” and I thought that was super important. But a lot of fashion shows, oh my gosh: “Chanel, they play disco music?” I just said, well, that’s life.
Some people said, “Oh my God, it cheapens the clothes,” or whatever. But I always thought that Chanel was a reflection on life, basically, of what’s happening around you. That’s why we did it that way.
Remixed by Michel Gaubert is published by Éditions Fayard, and is out now.
