4/10/2023 0 Comments Runway music![]() ![]() As press and critics advanced the hypothesis of Victorian influences in the collection - lace, crochet, bustier - the orchestral take could make sense, formally. It was accompanied by the London Contemporary Orchestra, whose musicians were dressed in black baseball caps bearing the Thomas Burberry TB monogram. The opera piece was commissioned to the Welsh composer Paul Mealor and performed by American superstar soprano Nadine Sierra. Burberryįor his Burberry farewell show, Riccardo Tisci devised a sonic quasi-dramaturgy, oscillating between stark silence and soprano-sounding vocal incursions. ![]() As previously acknowledged, runway music is essentially sound branding, hence it is often a tool to position the brand in some specific area, and here, classical music is reciprocally treated as a brand too - a luxury brand. What is even more intriguing is the functional psychology behind those music choices. As someone who has been commenting on and critiquing experimental music for years, I am shocked to see how the “classical orchestra” trend has permeated the fashion sound arena. To escape those routes, creative directors aimed high - not necessarily in terms of altitude, but in terms of erudition. Womenswear SS-23 collections unfolded through the usual fashion month schedule this autumn. Although the pleasure of analyzing the products of this game resides in the unexpected moments of genius, escaping the predictable route of commerce. Brands doing it right, and brands simply doing it. Yet we have winners and losers in the runway music game. In this context, an mp3 file of about 20 minutes often transcends its physical format to become abstraction - sound branding. What intrigues me about this C-tier creative practice is its disposability. “Presenting clothes,” varies in form: it could be a runway, a fashion film, a TikTok video, an Instagram reel or story, a branded YouTube post, or any medium that could formally imply the presence of sound. The archetypal product that I believe sets the blueprint of the much-discussed high-vs-low cultural production is what one could call “runway music.” Runway music is music produced, selected, purchased, cleared, used, commissioned, or, in some cases, stolen, for the purpose of augmenting the presentation of clothes. Mix it with some ice-cold Raymond Williams and you get the point. Fellow literati - contemporary and since passed - might very well roll their eyes, but we are on an avant-garde- and kitsch-energy boost here. I’ve embedded myself in the dangerous field of cultural criticism, where a commercial image bears as much significance as a theater play or a sheet of piano music. I have undertaken the laborious task of dissecting the gray zone of cultural production between high and low. ![]()
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