'Parisian Chic' from Ches Barrow is testament to her fashion-fuse music signature as a renowned fashion curator and lyric-heavy, grunge-chic style.
Perhaps unsurprising from the artist who is known for her substantial mark in the fashion industry as founder of Façonner creatively directing with the world's most celebrated fashion houses and championing sustainability in luxury. Her own multi-award winning brand has featured in Vogue and Harpers Bazaar. With Ches' last single ‘Wild’ mixed by Grammy award-winning Carl Glanville and mastered by Chris Gehringer featured on a national TV commercial for her brand Ches Editions, Ches' showed her ability as a songwriter to merge her worlds of fashion and music seamlessly.
In ‘Parisian Chic’ expect more jazzy innuendos together with Ches' nod to riot grrrl alternative pop-rock. With its melody carved out on the same Schimmel piano she’s written on since she was 8 and inspired by her world of style ‘a vain, shallow and beauteous facade beneath which dark currents flow like some wayward electricity’, it encapsulates the energy of her favourite fashion photographs. Telling the story of a female powerhouse unafraid and passionate but who retreats behind a red lip and her fashion armour when the going gets tough, the piano’s melody remains static until, following the lyrics it creates beautiful chaos in the second verse.
Ches’ songs often explore the dichotomy between perfectionism and what lies underneath ‘its why I went into fashion to begin with and was too afraid to publish my songs. The perfect mask. Unfortunately or fortunately, music is the rawness of all of that for me. You’re reading my diary. But in this, I fully embrace the mask.'
Her heavy fashion aesthetic meets lyric-centric alternative, rock-pop fusions, Ches was originally classically trained on the piano. Her love of words encouraged her to find influences in lyrical powerhouses which inspired her songwriting style towards more alternative genres. Despite having a repertoire of over 100 songs she’d written by the age of 16, Ches was hesitant to pursue music, ‘it wasn’t done for a girl like me’.
Instead, she pursued a career in fashion and has worked with every major fashion house globally becoming known for her editorial shoots in which she directs disparate elements to bring her ‘stories’ to life from the styling, model, location and hair and makeup and pioneering the luxury industry to more sustainable methods.
Despite her success, music remained an unquenchable passion. When a personal catalyst led Ches to reconnect with her songwriting, she met esteemed ME Mazen Murad and it was then that he helped her produce her debut EP ‘Girl Who Ruled the World’ in October 2021. The title track was described as ‘everything that makes people fall in love with music.’
Parisian Chic is Ches' offering to all of the lyric-loving, fearless fashion powerhouses behind those sunglasses xxx
Follow Ches's official instagram account @francescabarrow
26 окт 2024
