HYPETRAK 专访 Maison Kitsuné 联合创人 Gildas Loaëc

喜欢街头时尚的朋友应该都对法国时装品牌 Maison Kitsuné 的联合创人 Gildas Loaëc 十分熟悉，不过鲜为人知的是，除了时装之外，Kitsuné 还是一个集合了艺术与音乐的概念性品牌。而 Gildas Loaëc 便认为音乐与时尚之间有著密不可分的关系，并经常从源自巴黎街头的时尚中汲取灵感，然后将其融入音乐的创作中去。最近 HYPETRAK 网站便对 Gildas Loaëc 进行了专访，探讨他对于巴黎音乐发展的看法，品牌在亚洲的业务扩展，以及 Kitsuné 所代表的不羁精神等话题。下面便带来此次访谈的节选内容，完整版本不妨查看这里。

Where do you see France’s position in international music? Kitsuné, Daft Punk or Ed Banger as movements had a large impact on international music. How do you explain that?
Melody is very important to us. Obviously, there is a certain linguistic barrier for French people (laughs). However, we have found a way to overcome or let’s even say compensating this barrier and have been reaching international audiences. On an international scale, our focus has never really been on the writing process but rather focus on coming up with a catchy melody. In addition, we’ve always been strong in marketing the whole package through great graphic design and visuals and creating an interesting story behind it. At the end of the day, it’s also in the hands of the media to some extend. The media decides on which direction they will promote your material.

You have managed to successfully run Kitsuné a music and fashion business entity between Paris and Tokyo with your partner Masaya Kuroki for over ten years now. Being from Paris, how do you perceive Asia in general and its musical potential? And what do you think is the biggest misconception people in Europe have about Asia?
Due to having close business relationships with Masaya in Tokyo I am obviously traveling a lot to Asia a lot. We frequent places like Seoul, Jakarta, Bangkok, Hong Kong and so on. What strikes me most is how diverse Asia as a region really is. Everyone is always talking about China and its population of 1 billion but people tend to oversee the fact that there are also countries like Indonesia that has a bigger population than the U.S. There’s also a significantly younger demographic among their music consumers. So the potential is definitely huge. And if you’ve attended any events there you know there are audiences that are very passionate about music.