Daft Punk – Beyond the Music
Daft Punk – everybody recognizes their huge influence in the electronic music scene, everybody knows they are about to release their fourth album “Random Access Memories” next May. But, do you ever question how their image has changed through time?
If you look at the very debut of their career they were unmasked, angry and pretty rock/grunge. It was 1993, and their aesthetic was a clash of music styles as well as of youth subculture-way of dressing. Then, in the mid to late nineties, came “the incognito”, and masks often popped up on their faces: whether they were Halloween masks or just post-produced blurred effect. Furthermore their infamous videos (Da funk, Fresh, Around the world) were full of costumes and grotesque masks.
As Martin Margiela teaches us: avoiding physical identification is a way to let your creative talk first, but also a way to feed the imaginary around your mysterious identity. The duo learnt the lesson fast, and during this period (the so called Homework album era) their style became clearer and much more minimal: they usually performed, still unmasked, but with military or working uniforms, or baseball varsity jackets.
Indeed it was just a matter of time: Daft Punk’s robot helmets made their first appearance with the album “Discovery” (1999). They were geometrical, minimal with rough shape, made by the LED FX Company, featuring a screen surface displaying texts, images and music patterns. This retro futuristic outfit was completed by metallic finger gloves. Without a doubt this proto/robotic look is somehow connected to the love they both share for the futuristic world created by manga/anime artists (as Leiji Matsumoto, who collaborated later with them for the movie “Interstella 5555″).
Looking back to it, what was eye-catching and peculiar, is the contrast between the technological helmets and the clothes they used to wear: Thomas Bangalter normally showed himself in a colorful shirt and a blue or grey casual suit without a tie, or with a classic B/W and a bow tie; Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, instead, often appeared in a very formal white vintage shirt with ruffles and a very informal double-breasted red leather trench on it, or once again, in a classic suit. This “casual/chic vs technologic” approach to the outfits slowly disappeared for the previously popular overalls/uniforms and later for full leather outfits; meanwhile the helmets started to have more designed, softer lines.
The small adjustments to the outfits became mature and visually very effective with the release of “Human After All” (2004) and their movie Electroma (2006). Very minimal helmets and fitted black (sometimes white) leather outfits; biker trousers were combined to a zipped rock perfecto, studded in the back with the band’s name. Rock and electro were the main influences on the album, and the outfits together with their attitude clearly reflected it. For their promotional “Alive” tour (2007) they asked Janet Hansen, the chief of Enlightened Design, an high technologic costume design company, to create two leather outfits with special LEDs glowing in the dark underling of their costume, as well as on their pyramidal stage setting. It was just like a visual premonition: in 2010 they produced the soundtrack and did a cameo in “Tron Legacy” movie.
Recently, after composing soundtracks for movies and short films (Irreversible, The void, First point), Thomas Bangalter put himself again behind the camera and created a promotional fashion film for the LA brand Co, starring his charming wife Elodie Bouchez; 03.31 seconds of visually sharp and clean material, with an emotive twist. After an interesting 3D editorial for the magazine Dazed & Confused (in 2010), wearing classic evening suit, the last effort of the French duo is a 15-minute edit of the blues legend Junior Kimbrough’s songs for the 2013 S/S YSL collection of their friend Hedi Slimane. Apparently the more the time passes by, the more Daft Punk get close to the fashion world. What they’ll come up next, we’ll see upon the new release in May!
