Three talents blurring the lines of fashion and music—and collaborating with everyone from Hedi Slimane to Dion Lee.

Musicians and producers Visionist, Sofia Bolt and Schacke tell the stories behind the runway scores they composed for the likes of Acne Studios, Kenzo, Celine or Dion Lee.

Amélie Rousseaux, the French singer-songwriter and guitarist behind surf rock outfit <a href="https://www.sofiabolt.com/">Sofia Bolt</a>, had just returned home to LA from a tour when she and some friends decided to put on a spontaneous garage show. “It was an absolute pure pleasure,” recalls the musician. She had been writing music about her recent breakup (Rousseaux arrived in LA from Paris with a suitcase and a guitar after breaking up with her girlfriend in 2017) and the fuzzy, reverb-heavy “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPjRRNsxO8k">Get Out of My Head</a>” hit a mark. “One of Hedi’s collaborators was at the show,” remembers Rousseaux, referring to the influential <a href="https://www.goat.com/sneakers/brand/celine">Celine</a> creative, image and artistic director. 

A month later, in the weeks before the pandemic became a reality, the musician flew to Paris to meet the designer while on tour in Amsterdam. “My manager got an email saying ‘Would you like to do the show in two weeks?’” says Rousseaux. “We flew back to LA and had a week to do the 20-minute soundtrack.” 

Slimane is well-known for his love of music. He collaborated with everyone from Daft Punk to Phoenix in his Dior Homme days, shot his heroes—Joni Mitchell, Courtney Love and Kim Gordon, to name a few—at Saint Laurent, and created a style almost synonymous with disheveled rock chic. 

“He was like, ‘That’s the track I want, but let’s turn it from a two-minute 30-second song into a 20-minute song,” explains Rousseaux. This led to a creative dialogue, with Slimane meticulously editing directly from Paris. “His team gave us a few examples, but really just kind of kept trusting our vision and saying, ‘Be yourself.’ That’s so important in music,” she muses. “But also in fashion, right? The designers and musicians we love the most are being themselves.” 

“He knew exactly what he wanted,” says the artist. “Like at minute 13 and five seconds. When I was at the show, it made so much sense. It was just so poignant and strong and all those micro-details are what make it so powerful.”&nbsp;

London-based producer Louis Carnell, who produces haunting experimental electronic music under the moniker <a href="https://www.instagram.com/VISIONIST__/">Visionist</a>, came to fashion much as he came to music. “I was very much into art as a child and my practice then became music as I started to give up on art and drawing and painting. I just see fashion as art,” he relates. “It’s all structure, practice and creation.” 

Since his 2015 debut album <a href="https://visionist.bandcamp.com/album/safe">Safe</a>, which subtly replicated the feelings of panic attacks, safety and fearful exhaustion, Visionist has expanded his aural footprint through projects around the world. He lent his intricate productions to Kenzo and Acne Studios, dipped into his memories of teenage years spent in London’s underground clubs for Fashion East designer Liam Hodges, explored industrial noise for Japanese designer John Lawrence Sullivan, and floated into dreamlike, intimately orchestral territory for Per Götesson, a frequent collaborator. 

He’s also modeled and crafted sterling silver jewelry. Many projects come about through friends in London’s creative communities or the people he meets on tour; his first fashion collaboration was for a shoe brand with his friend Zebra Katz. “My creation feels very natural when I’m doing something for them,” says Carnell, explaining his connection to the designers he works with. “At the end of the day, we’re all trying to evoke emotion in different ways.” 

His latest project—along with his just released album, <a href="https://visionist.bandcamp.com/album/a-call-to-arms">A Call to Arms</a>, in which he sings in his own voice for the first time as Visionist—is both an album and capsule collection of tees and hoodies created long-distance with artist <a href="https://www.instagram.com/peterdepotter/?hl=en">Peter de Potter</a> and Danish design duo Heliot Emil. 

The artwork for the A Call to Arms’ capsule collection happened during lockdown,” says Carnell, who explores mental health, his relationship with anxiety and deconstructions of masculinity in his work. “I actually took all the photos for the collection with direction from Peter de Potter. I was glad that he trusted me to go out and take myself into his world. Where I can create and where I have the access to, I do.”

Martin Schacke, known for his industrial techno oeuvre as <a href="https://www.instagram.com/schackedelic/?hl=en">Schacke</a>, came to his first fashion collaboration much by chance. The producer attended a Dion Lee show in early 2020 with a friend. What followed was an impromptu hang at Lee’s apartment after the show, and soon, a nascent collaboration. 

They met again in Tbilisi, Georgia when Schacke was playing his last international gig before lockdown. “Dion messaged me after and was like, ‘Do you want to do this?’” The resulting track, titled “<a href="https://soundcloud.com/schacke/equestrian-lovecore">Equestrian Lovecore</a>,” builds in three parts. First, an ambient, slowly intensifying trance opening, a sort of sweeping invitation to Lee’s sartorial story. A second segment shifts everything up a notch, bringing a faster, racing trance, and as the last looks emerge, calming melancholy surfaces. 

“I didn’t get to see any of the collection,” says Schacke from Copenhagen, where he has spent the last year-and-a-half moving towards new ways of collaborating and exploring more personal work. “Dion just sent me pictures of some horses and told me a little bit about the collection. I had to imagine something after that.” 

The track was the perfect adrenaline hit to Lee’s elegant, <a href="https://www.goat.com/editorial/techno-rave-fashion-runway-style">rave-inflected</a> Fall 2021 collection. The <a href="https://www.goat.com/editorial/margiela-tabi-boot-style-history">hoofed boots</a>, integrated harness detailing, and empowered reimaginings of gendered staples fit beautifully with Schacke’s three-part offering. “It had to be a little bit dramatic,” says Schacke. “I kept imagining someone riding a horse really fast over the fields.” 

Equally important, the collaboration came at a time when so many sources of inspiration were cut off. &nbsp;“One of the things that helped me get motivated again was this job. Now I’m working on some tracks for a feature film and I’m also going to make music for a friend who is doing an art video,” says Schacke. “It’s a different way of working. I can try to do something that pleases someone else, using my own vision to meld it together with someone else’s. It’s really inspiring.” 
 
This past year and a half has changed the way we relate to what we create and might change the very nature of collaboration as well. Still, perhaps one thing stands as a universal sentiment: the need to connect in real life. “I would love to come and perform and actually be there,” says Schacke.&nbsp;

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The Maestros of the Runways