Usually, this credit goes to the show's music director. Somewhere between a stylist, a DJ and a conductor, this person makes sure the music enhances the show instead of distracting from it. They're the ones who choose the tracks that give you goosebumps at the finale, or move you to Shazam a track for later. They make sure the music just seems to fit.
One of the most renowned music directors in the business is Mimi Xu (aka DJ Misty Rabbit). Since 2007, she's coordinated show soundtracks for luxury heavy-hitters (Mary Katrantzou, Roksanda, Acne), high street brands (Topshop, H&M), and new talent (Xander Zhou, Wes Gordon, Ostwald Helgason) at each of the major fashion capitals.
The daughter of an acoustic architect who worked with opera houses to optimize sound, Xu grew up listening to experimental music and studying piano. ("That was a really amazing opportunity," she says of her musical upbringing, "but at the time, I wanted to go play with my friends on the playground rather than go to a concrete music concert.") Today she employs her eclectic tastes and vast repertoire to bring parties, films and runway shows to life.
Mimi Xu directed the music for Emilia Wickstead's Spring-Summer 2016 show at London Fashion Week
After a whirlwind week in New York for fashion week, where she supervised soundtracks for Yigal Azrouël, Brandon Maxwell (Lady Gaga's best friend and stylist) and Zimmermann by day and hit designer after-parties by night, she's back in London do the same for her home team. This season it means directing the likes of Emilia Wickstead and Pringle of Scotland.
In the lead-up to London Fashion Week, Xu divulged the secret to the perfect playlist, and gave us a sample of what she's listening to this season.
CNN: At this point, you're a familiar face in the music direction circuit. How did you make the leap from DJ to music director?
Mimi Xu: I was DJing quite a lot, and then the natural progression was to produce my own music, and fashion shows just happened to ask so I started working with them, and then more fashion shows came along. They just sort of built quite organically.
The first show that I did was actually for Vanessa Bruno in Paris [in 2007]. I did the music for her first catwalk show in Paris. Rather than doing a soundtrack, I remember recommending that she use live singers, live music. So that was how it started. And then I made a second show with Acne and helped produce the soundtrack.
How does music direction differ from DJing?
It's very different. DJing is all through the night, continuous, and you read the crowd. Working on shows is about the collaboration with the designer and how to really emphasize the culture of the collection, or go completely against it, depending on the take of each brand wants to go. Either underlining the concept or really clashing with the concept. So you know it really depends on the show, on the designer, on the space. READ FULL STORY HERE