For Matthieu Blazy’s sophomore Chanel ready-to-wear show last month, Lady Gaga’s Just Dance rang out through the Grand Palais show space not once, but twice throughout the presentation. From what could be seen of the front row, celebrities bopped in their seats and mouthed the lyrics as models marched in their finale line. This is often the case with the music at a Chanel show. Long has the house been recognized for having a deep relationship to music and to sound. There was Florence Welch performing in the seashell during Karl Lagerfeld’s tenure, Sébastian Tellier at a white grand piano while Virginie Viard was at the helm. The man behind these musical acts, and almost all of the show tracks since the early ‘90s, is Michel Gaubert.
As fashion’s leading sound director, Gaubert’s client list can readily be found to include the most prolific fashion houses of today–Christian Dior, Valentino, Loewe, Fendi, J.W. Anderson, Maison Margiela, to name a few–but his 30-year collaboration with Karl Lagerfeld is decidedly one of the most impressive elements of his oeuvre.
During this time, Gaubert was responsible for the the eighty-piece orchestra at Chanel’s Spring/Summer 2011 show, he produced the sound for Fendi’s famous show on the Great Wall of China, and oversaw the production of the 140-person band for Chanel’s 2016 cruise show at Paseo del Prado, in Havana, Cuba. Now, the Paris-based producer joins our Zoom call from his Paris apartment, one week after another busy show season, where he now works with industry golden child Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, alongside Blazy’s previous Bottega Veneta collaborator, Fabien Leclercq of Le Motel.
For someone who is an industry titan, one might expect a personality that takes themselves more seriously than Gaubert does. Instead, Gaubert is equal measures warm and conversational. For anyone who follows him on Instagram, this is hinted at through his humorous and almost meme-like posting style. Much like how he feels about Chanel, which Gaubert describes as “witty,” the same is reflected back in his own demeanor. Perhaps this is why this creative collaboration has transcended so many decades.
Ahead, get to know the prolific fashion sound director.
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Your recent show track for Chanel went a bit viral because of the Lady Gaga inclusion. Tell me about what made you decide on Just Dance for Fall/Winter '26.
MG: “Matthieu made me decide on Lady Gaga. It was his idea to do Lady Gaga. That was not what was planned from the beginning. And maybe all of a sudden, a week before, he said, 'Oh my God, I really feel this track.' And then we decided to include her.”
Can you tell me a little bit about what has changed in terms of working with the house and working with Karl and Virginie, and now working with Matthieu Blazy?
MG: “I started to work with Karl in 1991, and then I did nonstop. So I guess we built the musical decorum of Chanel all along these years. And then after Karl passed away, I continued with Virginie. And I knew Matthieu before also because I had been working with Raf Simons. I worked with him at Calvin Klein, and at Margiela, and then he [Blazy] went to Milan, to Bottega. And at Bottega, he worked with this musician called Le Motel. And when Matthew came to Chanel, he decided to have the best of both worlds. So we've been collaborating together since Matthew arrived at Chanel, which is wonderful because it's giving a different dynamic. And the meeting of both our styles and vision makes something that's different.
It still sounds quite Chanel because Chanel has always had a certain element of fun.”
There's levity.
MG: “Yes. Also, Matthieu gets it. The set design, the collection, he's witty, he has humor, but that's also something to me that's very Chanel because [Coco] Chanel was very witty. She was extremely witty as a person. She always had the word to say about everything. And Karl was one of the wittiest people I've ever met and very funny. So, Chanel was always this thing of being elegant and witty. It's life. Chanel is life. It's not trying to be... I don't know. She revolutionized fashion for sure. She brought a lot of things, but it's not maybe so intellectual. You know what I mean? Because it doesn't need to be.”
What was the most unforgettable thing Karl taught you?
MG: “Karl was a teacher in a way because I saw him like some kind of father figure in a way. But what I liked about Karl, he loved to share. He would go into his office and everyone would be there together at the same time, sharing ideas, talking about everything. He would be very expressive and always ask me what I thought of something. He was not a dictator, not at all.
It was very important for him to get the feedback from people he was working with and asking what to do, what they would think. And what I liked also with Karl is that he would tell you, 'I would like the music to be blue or red or Italian,' whatever. But that was just a guideline, he was expecting you to give him your idea of what that could be.
It was not like, 'I want this exactly.' And that was the same for everything. It was the same for clothes, for fabric, for shows, for everything. And it makes you feel very much at ease. One of the first times that I worked with him, I brought him something that was not so readable.
It was a bunch of patchwork of samples. And I said, 'I'm sorry it's maybe not so clear for you.' He said, 'Oh, don't worry. We are working together. You bring me what you want.' You know what I mean? It was always nice, always cool.
And also with Karl, the sky was the limit. I'm not talking budgets or anything like that, but whatever it took to get to where I wanted to, that would be done. And that was quite crazy.”
Chanel Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2026
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What do you listen to in the mornings?
MG: “Oh my God, let me go to my Spotify because I'm a Spotify person…Well, today I was listening to an old track of a guy called Labi Siffre. I don't know if you know him. It was playing in the TV show I was watching and I forgot about that track and I thought, my God, that's so beautiful.
Is it Cannock Chase?
MG: “Yes.”
I was listening to it this weekend when I was moving house.
MG: “Oh, you were? Well, I was not feeling so good. I had to stay home, so I just watched TV. But I like that track. That popped into my mind. I like the new Kim Gordon album, it's very different. There's one track called Girl With A Look that I really like. I like Rosalía, of course, but it's not really a morning thing. Maybe I would listen to Sauvignon Blanc in the morning because that's your hangover or something, so you need a little dose of wine. I listen to Caterina Barbieri also because I think she's an amazing artist. Wow. Also, I like very much a guy that we play, a musician that we played in the last ready-to-wear show. His name is Emile Mosseri. He's more like an instrumentalist and he does soundtracks, and we used a track of his in the show, and I think his music is very beautiful. That's a real good morning music record, I think.”
What’s the strangest thing that you've included in a show track?
MG: “Nothing is strange really, it depends what you make with it. Things become strange in regards to what's happening on the runway or what you're showing or maybe the way you shock people or whatever, but nothing is strange. Whales…I don't know, any animal sounds or maybe the last show, Fabien from Le Motel included construction site sounds. It's kind of strange, but it's not because in the end, it makes sense.
How do you want people to feel when they listen to your music at shows?
MG: “I want people to feel an emotion. Whether you feel joyful, sad, pensive, or you're wondering about something, or it has to make you react in some way. And also, I like people to feel like they're on a journey because to me, music is so visual, especially at a fashion show. Okay, you see the clothes, you see the collection, you see the set, you see the whole thing, and music adds another layer of narration. And if you're not into some of the other things, the music can hold you, can be like a little bed on which you feel comfortable and it touches your memories. And this is what we want to do a lot of times is turn on the collective memory, you know what I mean? So it makes you feel something and brings you to a place that maybe you forgot about. And Matthieu likes to do that too with people from his generation, that's why he likes Oasis and Rhythm Is A Dancer and the soundtrack to Dawson's Creek, these kind of things.”
It brings you back to a moment.
MG: “Exactly. It brings back a moment because that always works on people because it helps you understand something. It's showing also the reference that music might be an easier reference to grab onto than actual clothing.”
Are there any designers who are more connected to that sentiment than others? Are there some who prioritize the music more or are more involved?
MG: “Willy Chavaria, and he is very, very music oriented. His music language is the same as his clothes' language. It's really part of him, and you cannot separate the two. And Vaquera also. I love Vaquera because it's very much their own world, and we do this patchwork of things of random memories of things they're about, and we put them together, we clash them completely, and we do it with such energy that when you see the show, it's like, 'Wow, that's a trip.' You know what I mean? And that goes very much into also their language which is important.
Also, it's like when I started in the '90s, music was a bit more abstract because not everyone had such a great musical culture, but things have changed in such a way that music has become... It's like everything. Music is readily available and you have access, so people use it as a tool. Everyone does a Spotify or they go to songs they listen to all the time, whether it's to chill, to go to the gym, to be driving, to be crying, or to do their own runway in their own house. People cultivate this private garden in a way, and it's way different.”
Chanel Spring/Summer 2012
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Do you have a favorite or a most memorable show?
MG: “Yeah, I often talk about this one because it's a show we did for Chanel in Cuba in 2016. Karl told me, 'We're going to show in Cuba and you need to go to Cuba because there's no set design in Cuba. The set is the music, so it's all going to be about the music,' because they did the show outside on the street.
So I went to Cuba with my partner, Ryan, and when we spent maybe a short week in January and we were casting musicians and bands and it was quite mind-blowing. I mean, we saw a bit of everything, but we went to people's houses in the courtyards and the fields to see them play. And then we cast them and then we came back for the show. And in the end, we hired 140 musicians to play, and the human experience working with those people in Cuba, it was so gratifying.
They were so happy, ready to give everything they had to make it sound and look good It transpired in the show because at the end of the show, we had 40 drummers coming down the runway with all the girls and playing some kind of drum beats like this. Every single person in the audience got up and danced on the runway with the models, and I'd never seen that before. So that was very moving because it was the sharing of emotions. It was very nice.”
Do you make playlists for your friends?
MG: “Yes, of course, I do.”
What is one song that makes it on frequently?
MG: “It’s hard to say because most people, when I do a playlist for them, they want something more that they wouldn't expect. So someone's getting a birthday or a wedding or there's always a bit of sleaze or something. It depends what I make it for basically.
Is there one song that’s a go-to for people who are in love?
MG: “Yeah, I would play a bit soft porn, erotic music from the '70s, from Ennio Morricone or that movie with Catherine Deneuve called Donkey Skin because the music is very princess-like, very... I would play this kind of thing. Let me check what I do have here…Oh, I will try to find maybe some odd version of a famous song, like even a Donna Summer or something. I don't know. It could be anything really. But yeah, I'm trying to play people that think what people wouldn't expect to hear or that would maybe surprise them.
