Anyone sitting in the front row at Rick Owens's show at Paris fashion week might have found it tricky to concentrate on the clothes. With fires burning on the catwalk and masks on the models, there was also the thud of Zebra Katz's Ima Read – the only song on the soundtrack.
The Brooklyn rapper, who released Ima Read on Diplo's new label Jeffree, is now on fashion's radar. Writer Derek Blasberg dubbed it "the song of Paris fashion week". Other fans include Anna Della Russo and fashion director of W magazine Edward Enninful who, according to Blasberg, "will sing it to strangers".
Becoming fashion's flavour of the month is no bad thing. Show soundtracks tend to endorse songs before they become hits. Lana Del Rey's Video Games was played at Christopher Kane's spring/summer show last September, and it was in the top 10 a month later. Azealia Banks' 212 was championed by Alexander Wang months before she hit the mainstream.
With fashion and music closer than ever – recent catwalk muses include Beth Ditto and Florence Welch; Del Rey has a Mulberry bag named after her; and Banks sat front row at Topshop's show – Ima Read's hit status is a pretty safe bet.
