When concerts become fashion shows.

Mr David Byrne, the lead singer of Talking Heads, hit upon his most iconic look while enjoying some downtime between tours in Japan. Wondering how to communicate his band’s vision on their Stop Making Sense tour in 1984, Mr Byrne turned to his friend Mr Jurgen Lehl. “Well, David, everything is bigger on stage,” said the fashion designer. It was an ethos Mr Byrne embraced for his next tour wardrobe, where the size of his everyman suit increased until he appeared to drown in it, sunk by the American Dream.

These days, his suits may have shrunk, but what he wears still works in harmony with his music. The clothes for his current American Utopia tour, which runs until October, are a little more practical. He and his 12-strong band want to be as mobile on stage as possible. Their suits, made by Kenzo, have been designed so they can mount keyboards and percussion instruments to them. As a result of this partnership, the tour merch is rather more refined than the standard Fruit Of The Loom tee too, as Opening Ceremony collaborated on the designs.

Just as Kenzo and Opening Ceremony did for Mr Byrne, so other fashion designers have exerted elaborate, career-defining influence. In the 1970s, the British fashion designer Mr Antony Price became one of the first to be credited on a record – Roxy Music’s debut. Mr Price turned lead singer Mr Bryan Ferry into a louche Hollywood star in sharp-shouldered suits, most memorably the white shawl-collar dinner jacket he wore for his first solo shows in 1974. The designer made Mr Ferry, and his music, distinguished.

For the adventurous rock star, the stage can become a runway. In the early 1970s, Mr David Bowie enlisted the help of Japanese designer Mr Kansai Yamamoto to turn him into Ziggy Stardust for his Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars tour. Influenced by the Japanese concept of Basara, a blend of extravagance, eccentricity and excess, Mr Yamamoto conjured up an asymmetrical knitted leotard and a bow-legged striped Tokyo Pop bodysuit, originally designed with a woman in mind. Mr Bowie’s bold, avant-garde touring wardrobe went on to be as celebrated as his music.

Mr Yamamoto also introduced Mr Bowie to the Japanese kabuki theatre practice of hikinuki (the quick costume change), now a staple of the modern female performer’s repertoire. This presents a problem for their male counterparts when they share a stage. For Jay-Z, the solution, when working with his superstar wife Ms Beyoncé Knowles-Carter on their On The Run tour in 2014, was to hold his own in a classic, understated Tom Ford suit paired with T-shirts and sneakers.

There are moments when musicians influence designers, rather than the other way around. In 2005 Mr Hedi Slimane began to photograph the stage shows of The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand and The Kills. Their skinny aesthetic – all worn-in, slim leather jackets and drainpipe jeans – inspired the designer to transform early 2000s menswear in a similar vein.

Hip-hop is the dominant force in music now, and the style one might associate with the genre – streetwear – has taken centre stage. When Mr Kanye West wore a Riccardo Tisci for Givenchy T-shirt, leather jeans and a kilt on the Watch The Throne tour in 2011, he ushered in a new era of tours as catwalks. This year, Mr Justin Timberlake’s Man In The Woods tour wardrobe is by Stella McCartney and Drake’s Boy Meets World tour is more or less a runway show for Prada’s SS18 collection. The style might not be as conceptual as Mr Byrne’s and the ambition more nakedly commercial, but at least the clothes fit.