For as long as fashion shows have been around, their goal has been to drive business — whether through sales or by increasing brand awareness. Consumers must be convinced that they need a new piece of clothing. Editors need to be inspired to share a collection with their audience. To persuade attendees to feel connected to a collection, designers must not only make something visually appealing, but often also craft a specific story that explains why a garment exists, who should be wearing it and where it should be worn.
Though those ideas typically come straight from the moment a collection is initially sketched, the final stage of storytelling falls into the hands of a new team of creatives. The artists who help bring these clothes to life include movement choreographers, lighting designers and — perhaps the most crucial of them all — music directors.
Throughout history, fashion show soundtracks have been made up of everything from live string quartets in the early 1920s to collaborations between music superstars and major houses, like Daft Punk and Louis Vuitton and Mark Ronson and Gucci. Likely the most famous example of music and fashion overlapping is at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, where A-list singers perform alongside an active catwalk of models, giving the lingerie brand its biggest marketing moment of the year.
However, there’s an entirely separate community of musicians the fashion industry regularly calls upon to help strengthen their shows from behind the scenes.
Photo: Anna Jewel/Courtesy of Parker Radcliffe
“I really just want to use the resources that I have to create the best possible show,” says Parker Radcliffe, a New York-based DJ who works with designers like Sandy Liang and Sam Finger. “You kind of learn over time that you really need to highlight the designer. You’re using the best of you to help [deliver on] what they’re trying to execute.”
In the Fall 2025 New York Fashion Week season alone, several standout moments had to do with a show’s soundtrack, leaving showgoers with feelings and thoughts they likely otherwise wouldn’t have had. Collina Strada — whose entire brand ethos is built on motivating its customers to think about sustainability — opened with a parody version of “Only Time” by Enya, immediately welcoming a burst of soft laughter from the audience.
“Who said Collina Strada cares a lotta, all the time? / And if you do care a lotta, then you gotta join our fight,” sang recording artist Oyinda in place of the song’s usual lyrics. “Who can say you’re an ally, if you don’t try, to minimize?”
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The music transformed the show from an experience solely based on clothing into one largely defined by these lyrics, which helped live viewers to better understand the concept of the collection (which included several looks made up of upcycled Collina Strada patterns and fabrics from past seasons).
Oyinda started working with the brand as a model. She became close friends with Creative Director Hilary Taymour, who eventually asked the artist to take over the show music. “I think the most ideal way [to collaborate with someone] is just to have a relationship or care for whoever you get to work with,” Oyinda tells Fashionista. “You both may need to go off in your own direction and focus, especially when it comes to fashion and [the designer] has to get the collection together. You’re really left to your own devices, so you have to be able to tell what the brand wants and almost telepathically work sometimes.”
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Oyinda and Taymour’s working relationship is rooted in a deep sense of trust and understanding; the two rarely even feel the need to verbalize any thoughts. “Collina Strada is super inclusive, and that has always been [Hilary’s] goal — to welcome everybody,” Oyinda notes. “I think even through music, bringing levity and balancing the strong and the soft is important because it makes you feel welcome. It makes you feel relaxed. Like you don’t have to take things so seriously and you can just enjoy.”
Oyinda’s process with the brand is unique. She doesn’t typically see the clothing before fashion week rehearsals. Taymour will often come to her weeks before the show with a shortlist of songs and ideas that feel nostalgic yet relevant to the collection’s theme. From there, Oyinda and her collaborator, Low Noon, are given full reign to figure out the final tracklist, the spoofed lyrics and how to sonically move between each section.
“For the past couple of seasons, there’s been one main song and the rest have flowed from there. There’s always going to be a transition that makes sense, at least to my ear. With this Enya song, I wanted to make sure to build it. So we made an alternative electronic, fresh and dreamy bridge that sampled the song itself,” Oyinda explains. “Before the collection was made, Hilary had written down a list of women that were on her mind while designing, and I wanted to honor that. So, I also included ‘Independent Women Pt. II’ by Destiny’s Child.”
Photo: Michael Zhao/Courtesy of Ben Brunnemer
Of course, every relationship a songwriter, composer or DJ has with a designer is different. The process of Ben Brunnemer — a go-to music supervisor for some of the biggest fashion brands in the world, including frequent client Thom Browne — differs only slightly in preparation, but significantly in execution.
“For Thom, it starts very abstract. He’ll email me weeks before the show with just some words that he’s thinking about. It’s usually very vague,” Brunnemer tells Fashionista. “I’ll start thinking about what he sent, then we’ll have a call where he starts explaining a more concrete concept of the show and the general vibe. I bring more stuff together based on that. Then about a week before the show, we meet in person and I see the looks [for the first time]. From there, we start further pulling [musical ideas] together. Sometimes I write original music, sometimes I’m working with existing stuff. Every season is different.”
What makes Brunnemer’s technique special is that, rather than just pressing play at the event, he’s often live mixing a pre-designed soundscape on-site and hitting cues in real-time, similar to the operations of a live theater production. Thom Browne is a prime example of that system.
“It’s very choreographed. Depending on how complicated the score is, there’s only so much day-of-show changes that can happen because so much of it is tied exactly to the looks,” he says. “A lot of it comes together on the day of the show. Sometimes I’ll have 15 music cues with sound effects and things that come in on a specific look. By the time we ran the show, it was the sixth time we had run it. I mixed everything in that show live and timed it to every movement. I was in that venue for 14 hours straight or something that day. It’s like putting on a full-on concert.”
Thom Browne Fall 2025 runway show. Music direction by Ben Brunnemer.
At the brand’s Fall 2025 show (which Brunnemer worked on), guests were welcomed by the sounds of birds chirping mixed with soft piano melodies. Once everyone had settled into their seats, a louder cluster of bird noises echoed through the venue before transitioning into “Little Bird” by Ariella Glaser from the “White Bird” film soundtrack.
“Little bird, little bird / How high will you fly? / Just as high as the sky, as the sky above you.”
Models walked the runway embodying birds that “long[ed] to be free,” according to a press release from the brand. With the song switching between major and minor chords beneath the singer’s haunting tone, the desperation of each “bird” that walked the runway was made even more palpable.
“[The designer and I] want [the music] to have this reaction, but we also don’t want to take anything away from the clothing. We want it to always be this thing where the music just becomes a wash and it’s like a soundtrack or a film score,” Brunnemer explains. “You don’t want to be in there and be like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t pay attention because this music’s so annoying.’ You just want it to enhance the mood and give an emotional depth to what people are seeing.”
Sandy Liang Spring 2023 runway show. Music supervision by Parker Radcliffe.
Radcliffe emphasizes the important role music plays in an audience’s perception of a show: “No matter who you hire, the music is going to give the room a specific vibe. And people are picky these days and are paying close attention as well. So to curate [a show’s soundtrack] just takes someone with a point of view.”
Radcliffe is right. The truth is, no matter how great a collection may be, if the song blaring over it is by an artist a critic personally doesn’t like, it could impact their review of the show. If a buyer comes into the venue expecting one energy from the designer but gets something completely different from the music, it could affect whether or not they place an order.
“Film scoring was such a huge influence on me [pursuing music],” says Oyinda. “The music makes the scene, and I think that carries through everything. That’s why music is so important when you’re watching a runway. Even a lack of music — that’s a very clear statement.”
Hiring someone with an expert ear to cultivate a distinctive audio environment, while still appealing to the majority of people, is key. And when an audience connects with a collection on a deeper level because of what they’re hearing, it’s the ultimate payoff.
Thom Browne Fall 2024 runway show. Music direction by Ben Brunnemer.
“I have been doing this for a long time and I’m still surprised by what connects with people,” says Brunnemer. “At this last Thom show, people really reacted to the music and afterward a bunch of people came up to me like, ‘Oh my God.’ I obviously thought the music was good, but you just never know.”
Because Brunnemer has been working within the fashion industry for many years, he recognizes how much music preferences have changed.
“When I first started, the goal was to ‘make the sickest soundtrack,'” he recounts. “We wanted people to be like, ‘That show was crazy.’ There was a period in New York for a long time when people were just trying to have these high-energy runway shows and just wanted cool tracks. Then when I first started working with Thom around 2007, it felt very different than what most designers were doing, but it made so much sense with the clothes and the vision he had for what the world was. I definitely feel like more of the people I work with now want to do more creative things that really tell a story versus 15 years ago.'”
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That said, Brunnemer still appreciates the shows that simply focus on executing a “fun” and “exciting” feeling. He also routinely works with Daniel Roseberry of Schiaparelli, where sounds are decided less upon a storyline and more on the energy of a venue, the models and whether a collection is ready-to-wear or couture: “One is supposed to be this kind of otherworldly experience and another is, ‘Oh yeah, I could see myself wearing this outfit and going out.'”
While creating a soundtrack that opens up an “otherworldly” vision to showgoers is certainly a skillful feat, it’s just as impressive to make something that resonates with someone’s everyday life.
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For the last few seasons of Collina Strada shows, Oyinda has been uploading each mix onto Soundcloud due to demand. “[Hillary] was like, ‘I’m getting so many DMs about the music. I need you to just put it out,'” she says. “I’m just really grateful for Hilary allowing me the creative space to flow freely without the pressures of my own mind and overthinking.”
What ultimately ties these artists together is their genuine love of music and the fashion community. While Oyinda’s collaboration with Taymour is more of a side gig to her main work as a songwriter and recording artist, Brunnemer and Radcliffe have built their careers within this niche (and growing) corner of the industry.
Photo: Michael Zhao/Courtesy of Ben Brunnemer
Brunnemer’s entry point was through DJing. “In the early 2000s, I was part of a scene that included a lot of fashion designers, so people started asking me to do their shows. As time went on, it became more of my specialty.”
Radcliffe got his start after notorious publicist and “The Hills” star Kelly Cutrone took his SoulCycle class. “She pulled me aside and said, ‘I’m a witch. You’re going to be a famous DJ.’ She took me under her wing from then on,” he recalls. It all came full circle for Radcliffe when he reunited with Cutrone’s company, People’s Revolution, during the February 2025 season of New York Fashion Week.
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“One Night in Bangkok” Spring 2025. Music supervision by Parker Radcliffe.
For those looking to pursue this type of career, there isn’t exactly one path. Oyinda formally studied music theory at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, and has been working professionally ever since. But an educational background in music isn’t completely necessary. Radcliffe got a marketing degree, then went on to hone his craft at Scratch DJ Academy, a program started in 2002 by Jam Master Jay of Run DMC.
Brunnemer studied art at Bard College before working in a gallery with a bar attached to it where he would DJ: “All these fashion designers hung out there, so I ended up in the fashion world via New York creative world. There’s never a linear path.”
Despite now consistently working with established brands, Brunnemer still looks to revisit the excitement from the beginning of his career that comes from working with up-and-coming designers. “The stuff I’m doing is super creative, but it’s also high-end and stressful. So it is fun to do smaller stuff and work with designers of all kinds.”
Brunnemer sums up the rewards of the job: “There is this sort of magic that happens where you’re like, ‘Oh, whoa. It’s even better than we thought it was going to be.’ When everything comes together, it’s just really good.”
Source: Fashionista.com