Mario Dodovski doesn’t work in the music industry, nor the fashion industry, actually. Instead, he’s a technical writer for a large international company that develops scanning solutions for the dental industry. But in his spare time he also runs the Instagram @runwaytomusicvideo, a creative outlet where he — as you might expect — chronicles the different designer outfits worn in the music industry’s most stylish videos.
Despite the fact it only started back in May, Mario says the Runway to Music Video project has been in the works for a long time. “I first realised I loved the thrill of spotting runway items in music videos when I saw Gwen Stefani wearing one of those Dolce & Gabbana hand-painted gowns from spring/summer 08 in Early Winter,” he tells i-D.
The Instagram began life as a thread (not on Twitter but on a forum, remember those!) all the way back in 2012. Now it’s updated for the nu-social media era. “Nowadays I like to dedicate at least an hour every day to the Runway to Music Video Instagram, whether that’s preparing new posts or adding more to the lists of identified outfits,” Mario says. “Depending on whether it’s a new or old music video, finding out what the artist is wearing can take anything from 15 minutes to a week. The worst case scenario is when I’ve been barking up the wrong tree completely since many of the looks are either custom made, vintage or never appeared in a show.”
The process is so time-consuming partly because of Mario’s decision to properly credit all of the designers, stylists, and labels behind all of the best looks. The extra step is a nod to the work that goes on behind our favourite videos, something that Mario explains is very important. “Crediting all of the people responsible for each work is obviously a conscious choice, albeit a difficult thing to do,” he says. “I can find the director through a quick IMDB search usually, but crediting the right stylists for videos released before the rise of social media can be a challenge. Often the lack of information online means that I have to assume that the person who styled a particular look is the same stylist the artist was working with around the time of release, or hope that the stylist personally reaches out to me for credit.”
And the extra work undoubtedly pays off, making the @runwaytomusicvideo feed an impressive time capsule of styles and iconic moments over the past two decades.“ Déjà vu is my favourite video of all the ones I’ve covered,” Mario says. “It’s amazing the way Beyoncé makes every piece of clothing come alive. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to be Queen B dancing in a beaded haute couture number in the sand somewhere in another life.”
Honestly, same.