Casablanca’s ode to house music comes complete with the perfect playlist
Creative director Charaf Tajer shares the six tracks that inspired his Spring/Summer 2026 runway show.
“For me, House is more than just music; it’s a celebration of diversity, unity, and joy,” Charaf Tajer tells me. The founder and creative director of Casablanca brought that spirit to life in his Spring/Summer 2026 runway show – a vibrant love letter to the genre that shaped nightlife, style, and community across generations.
To capture that energy, Tajer enlisted none other than legendary DJ Louie Vega. The Masters at Work icon composed an original track for the show, aptly titled For the Love of House.
The presentation opened with a live gospel choir, their voices lifting through the venue as models began to emerge. It was a spiritual invocation, setting the tone for a collection that merged the sacred and the sensual – club euphoria meeting Sunday-morning soul.
Casablanca reimagined its signatures through the rhythm of House, creating a kaleidoscope of colour and movement. Striped polos, jellyfish-tendrilled mini skirts and neon-tinted tracksuits danced down the runway – looks that nodded to the club couture of the early noughties while remaining distinctly Casablanca: sporty, refined, and alive with colour.
“Usually, music is curated for fashion shows using existing tracks, but to compose and produce a piece from scratch – and to have it performed live by an 18-person choir while I DJed – was a dream come true.”
When speaking about the inspirations behind the collection, Tajer shared the six tracks that soundtracked his creative process. A playlist pulsing with the spirit of the genre.
Each track became both muse and metronome: Saraga’s God Is Good set the tone with a spiritual groove that echoed the gospel undertones later shaping the runway’s opening moments, while Paul Johnson’s Follow This Beat 2k13 injected raw Chicago energy that grounded the collection in House’s origins.
Vampire Sex’s Disco Party Baby closed the loop with glitter-soaked irreverence. Together, the six tracks mirror the collection’s arc. From faith to freedom, from nostalgia to now. But ultimately it reveals how deeply sound shapes Tajer’s world.
House, for Tajer, is more than nostalgia. “It unites generations and cultures. It’s the result of decades of different musical influences coming together”, he explains. “To create the ultimate form of modern sound”.
With this latest collection, Casablanca once again proves that fashion and music aren’t just complementary – they move as one. As the final chords faded, what lingered wasn’t just applause. It was the feeling of collective euphoria that only House (and Casablanca) can summon.