Isabella Massenet first realized she knew how to read a room when, as a kid, she was tasked with the music selection in the car.
“I learned what it means to play a song at a certain time,” she says over coffee at Sant Ambroeus in early February. “I really think that that’s where I got my itch to want to play something and for it to enhance a feeling.”
Cut to lockdown in 2020 and Massenet, who was studying at UCLA at the time, came back home to London to be with her family. With all the downtime, she started learning how to properly DJ. When the pandemic eased, her mom, Net-a-porter founder Natalie Massenet, had moved to New York, and Isabella Massenet decided to transfer to New York University.
“I was a bit shy about it initially, and then I just started being like, ‘Hey, I’m a DJ, does anyone want someone to play?’” she says. Her first big event was a Louis Vuitton event in London that her friend, Princess Olympia of Greece, was hosting.
“From that point on, it sort of became word of mouth. ‘This is a girl who can do fashion stuff and be really fun,’” Massenet says. “And I think there’s a line between keeping it fun and cute and also sophisticated at the same time somehow. That’s sort of a line that I toy around with.”
Isabella Massenet
The 25-year-old has become a go-to DJ for fashion events, popping up at parties and shows regularly. Last season she made her runway show debut by doing the music for Nanushka and TWP, and this New York Fashion Week she worked with Prabal Gurung exclusively for his show, held over the weekend.
“He sort of speaks the same language [as me], how it’s all about the emotion and what we want to bring everyone through,” Massenet says of working with Gurung. She was able to go through the collection with the designer, and they spoke about various references, including his memoir “Walk Like a Girl,” which comes out this spring.
“We focused on an element of ’90s nostalgia — it’s sort of sad electronic,” she says. “But then also it’s in this really beautiful venue, and so it’s playing along the lines of those two things. When I think ’90s electronic music I imagine small spaces and then big classical music I imagine big spaces.”
Growing up in London, Massenet was in a choir, which suited her — she didn’t aspire to be the center of things, but enjoyed her role as part of an ensemble.
“My choir was quite cool and creative — we did the Spice Girls and we did these sessions at Abbey Road Studios,” she says. “I became really close with my choir teacher and I loved hearing about what arrangements she was going to do. I never took myself seriously enough to think this is something that I would ever do, but it’s always been in the back of my mind.”
Isabella Massenet
Every now and then, her mom would bring her along to a fashion show. “I was always so excited by the music,” she says, noting the Christopher Bailey era at Burberry as a favorite.
In addition to DJing, Massenet is working with music producer Randall Poster, longtime collaborator of Wes Anderson who has also worked on movies like “Skyfall” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
“I’ve been learning a lot about movie soundtracks and how music really goes with the storytelling,” she says. “I feel like I’ve been learning about music curation through so many different lenses, and that’s where I feel really excited about what I can do with this.”
Aside from fashion events, she’s a frequent DJ at fashion-beloved spots like Jean’s, Chez Margaux and Casa Cruz. She dreams of being a music director in-house at a brand and getting to work more holistically with the company on their music messaging.
“It’d be really exciting to look at a brand in all of its aspects and create a musical identity for it. Because then I would imagine that you hear a song come on and you think, ‘Oh, there’s that brand,’ and it kind of creates another dimension,” she says, referencing Ralph Lauren and Khaite as inspirations. “That would be my dream, to be 360 about ‘what is the music for this brand?’ I’ve grown up with fashion in my life and I love music and it’s sort of a way that everything exists, right? Merge those two worlds. I definitely am not the first to come up with any of this, but I just think that there’s so much opportunity for that is yet to be pushed.”
