Music as couture, interview with BFRND

When I first met BFRND in Trieste in the company of his husband Demna, I was struck not by his dizzying height - enhanced by a pair of Balenciaga Hard Crocs on his feet - or the ubiquitous Balenciaga full look, but by his shy and reserved nature, which is in complete contrast to his music. «It is like therapy for me. I tell my story, my feelings, my experiences, and my fantasies. There’s nothing more me than my music,» he tells me as we talk about his relationship with music. Born Loïck Gomez, BFRND can hardly be categorized: as a musician, but also a model and face of several Balenciaga campaigns. «My very first record was Reise Reise by Rammstein in 2004, I was 12 years old and Rammstein was the first band that made me realize what type of music I liked,» he says when I ask him where his love for music started, which led to his first concert in 2007 after the Rammstein record. «I went to see Punish Yourself, a cyber-punk/industrial band. I didn’t know much about them, at the time I had just heard one of their most commercial tracks on a compilation CD that came with a metal magazine I bought a week before and the show was a huge slap in the face, all the members of the band were topless and their bodies covered in UV paint to look like post-apocalyptic aliens.»

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

From there, his's vision for his future was quite clear - «That day I understood I wanted to be on stage and do my own thing,» he tells me. However, a future that did not yet include a career in fashion. «I started exploring my personal style when I discovered metal music because all the bands I was listening to had a very unique sense of style and subcultures still existed back then» - he tells me when I ask him when he started getting into fashion - «Where I grew up, calling someone “fashion” was an insult so I never really was interested in high fashion brands, I was very much into taking regular clothes and customize them into my own thing, all I needed was black garments, a pair of scissors and baby powder to make everything look destroyed and dirty. If you look at my 2021 Met Gala outfit you’ll see that nothing changed.» Before that day - when Demna showed up completely masked sending the press into a frenzy - there was the meeting with Balenciaga's creative director in 2016, and the wedding in Switzerland a year later, leading him to contribute to the shows by composing the soundtrack. «When Demna asked me to start composing music for his shows he was becoming more and more conceptual and using existing tracks wasn’t helping his storyline enough,» he tells. «It’s like couture, instead of choosing the size of a t-shirt that will fit you but also many others, it’s tailored to your body, and no one else than you will wear it as good. My job is to perfectly match Demna’s vision and translate his collection into sound.» Elephant, the EP released last October, moves in this very direction by collecting the soundtrack of the Spring 2023 show staged in Paris in a sea of mud. «It’s very important that people understand that all the soundtracks I do for Balenciaga are specially made for the shows, I create everything from scratch to fit the mood and the story of the show. Usually, Demna starts by explaining the collection, he also knows more or less what genre it should be and then I start working on it,» he tells me, explaining the differences in the creative process that leads to the birth of the soundtrack for a show, which he describes almost as a choral work in which he first responds to the needs of the collection and its creator.

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

BFRND by Anthony Arquier styling by Laëtitia Gimenez Adam

Something quite different from what happens when BFRND writes for himself, a moment when he is «the only person who decides what it’s gonna sound like», as he tells me. A freedom that has its pitfalls, though, especially in terms of the almost therapeutic relationship he has with his music, which can confront him with his insecurities, far from Demna's guidance, present in the productions for the Balenciaga shows. Since 2017 - the year he created his first soundtrack for a brand show - BFRND's work has actively contributed to the increasing importance of music in shows, a task previously «ruled by DJs selecting pre-existing songs to make the soundtrack.» «Now houses understood that music can make a show much more impactful and unique. I wish there was more risk-taking, everything other houses does sounds very “safe” and that doesn’t excite me so much» While waiting to hear the soundtrack for the next show, BFRND is starting to work on the possibility of touring and taking his music around the world without giving up his unique approach. «For me repeating the same show over and over all around the world is not offering a unique experience to the audience. I want to do fewer concerts but work on something unforgettable, I want to play where we are not used to going to a concert, there are so many beautiful places in the world in which nothing is happening» With these conditions in mind, we can only look forward to the time when we will hear BFRND's music again: on the catwalk and in concert.