The show begins before the lights. Not with a gesture, not with a step, but with a vibration. The frequency of not-yet-formed air — what sounds before music. Hidden in this first noise is the architectural code of the fashion performance. And if in the past music was chosen as background, today sound has become a co-author. A scenographer. A perfumer of the invisible. Noise is luxury, and luxury has learned to sound. Frédéric Sanchez doesn’t work like a DJ, but like a director. His tracks are assembled not by BPM, but by metaphysics. He works in categories of time architecture. Prada shows under his sound design are scenes that cannot exist in silence. The Fall/Winter 2019 show began with a rumble, as if a massive set piece was being lifted in a factory. It was an industrial creak. Indistinct, but familiar. Something we heard in childhood — at construction sites, in the subway, in elevators. Low, heavy, vibrating metal. It pushed the space apart. It created the feeling that what was about to be told was not a collection, but an era. Noise as metaphor — this is the language of Saint Laurent in Anthony Vaccarello’s era. His shows sound like a drone. A long, echoing tone, with no melody, no rhythm. Only tension. A note, like a taut string, stretches through the entire show, creating a theatrical arch. We don’t hear it — we live in it. These echoing planes became the architecture of sound. They hold the space of the show no less than concrete. And when the first model appears — she enters an already built acoustic hall. In fashion, sound has become a tool of plasticity. At Prada, for example, silence is used as relief. Between two tracks, a gaping silence often arises. It’s not just a pause. It’s a technique that directs attention. Like a pause between two breaths. Or like an empty gallery in a museum between two works — so the eyes can clear. Such sound is not entertainment — it is acoustic asceticism. The ability to let stillness speak. At Saint Laurent, sound is catastrophe. The Maison’s sound designers use noise like a black veil. It cannot be read — only lived. In one of the Spring-Winter shows, monotonous radio noise played — as if someone were catching signals from other planets. And this created the necessary feeling of isolation. The clothing felt like a spacesuit. The city — unreachable. The stage — a Martian platform. Noise ceases to be décor — it becomes the setting. Sound in luxury functions like skin in haute couture — it gives the object density. Good sound design is when a coat feels heavier than it is. When a model’s step becomes a gunshot. When a glance can be heard. This is exactly how Frédéric Sanchez’s system works. He, like an editor from a Godard film, cuts, glues, layers noises to create an acoustic script. His music is not a track — it’s a narrative. He introduced into fashion the concept of tracks with a delayed effect — when you hear a strange song, don’t recognize it, but it returns to you at night. The retro-shock effect. Koudlam is another hero of this era. His tracks played at shows for Dior Homme, Balenciaga, Rick Owens. He has industrial monumentality. His tracks seem to build towers in the air. They are not about fashion. They are about civilization. His music is like the sound of a rusty antenna receiving the last signals of a vanished world. When he plays — the show space stops being fashionable. It becomes technogenic. In Japanese culture, there is the concept of ma — the silence between sounds. The space where nothing happens. It is precisely ma that makes the emergence of form possible. Frédéric Sanchez intuitively uses this technique. His sound in Margiela, Jil Sander, Miu Miu is built not on volume, but on incompletion. This is true luxury — not to fill everything. To leave space for listening. Now, in the TikTok era, where a track lasts 15 seconds, sound design in a fashion show sounds like a manifesto. A manifesto of depth. A claim for experience. Saint Laurent shows at the opera house under the open sky sound like a city play. They don’t compete with city noise — they use it. It’s stunning to hear how the sound of wind becomes part of the score. Or how footsteps on marble write the rhythm of the collection. Sound has become the choreographer of fabric. This aesthetic came from cinema. The directors of fashion sound are heirs to Bergman, Tarkovsky, Wong Kar-wai. Sound is smoke that holds the scene. Sound shows what cannot be seen. That’s why today, a fashion show without considered sound — is a dead defilé. Sound has become aura. It carries the brand’s entire intonation. At Balenciaga — it’s the rumble of approaching apocalypse. At Prada — a sound montage from the 20th century. At Loewe — an installation of silence, like in a museum. At Ann Demeulemeester — the rustle of Belgian poetry. All this is language. Sound in fashion has become a new form of writing. When we say “fashion sounds,” we no longer mean a soundtrack. We mean an entire acoustic architecture where each frequency carries meaning. Steps, strikes, pauses, static, hum — all bricks in a new building of the show. A house made of sound. And in this house, noise is luxury. Not because it is expensive — but because it is conscious. Like perfume without packaging. Like fabric touched in the dark. Like a voice sounding from within.