From Deep Purple to Saint Etienne – check out the best tracks from the recent men’s collections.

If you’re reading this and you’re in your mid-twenties, you probably went through a stage about 10 years ago of donning unspeakably wide jeans to ape whatever punk-rock band was on your headphones at the time. If you’re a little bit older – in your forties, say – and grew up with 1980s pop and rock, you’re likely to have a few baggy blouse-shirts in your wardrobe. Perhaps a Morrissey-esque quiff once quivered atop your head. Maybe it still does. Not a fan of The Smiths? You may have taken your style cues from Duran Duran or Talking Heads instead.

If being a mod was more your thing and you listened to The Small Faces, only a three-buttoned suit would do (with back vents, of course). A decade later, Mr David Bowie and glam would bring bright colours, flared trousers and platform shoes into many music fans’ lives. Glam, with its gender-bending glitz, was just one of the musical genres we saw influencing the runways in London, Milan and Paris.

Music remains one of the most important cultural reference points from which fashion takes its ideas – whether organically on the street or as a collection on a runway. Take Mr Neil Barrett. He showed this year that he can’t shake his obsession with the skinhead subculture (which was influenced by the ska, soul and reggae of West Indian rudeboys) by dressing his models in drainpipes and bovver boots. Gucci revisited its 1970s rock’n’roll legacy, presenting clothes that would have been snapped up by Sir Mick Jagger and Mr Keith Richards in their prime. And, going down a slightly different route, Mr Junya Watanabe took inspiration from African sapeurs, scoring his Paris runway show with a suitably life-affirming bag of soul.

Whether the music had shaped the clothes themselves or was simply designed to make the show more memorable (check out J.W.Anderson’s spoken-word choice below) – we found ourselves shazaming the tracks in Milan, London and Paris nearly as much as we were studying the clothes. What’s more, when you’ve run out of ways to say “classics with a twist”, knowing what song every fashion designer’s favourite show producer Mr Michel Gaubert dropped at Raf Simons is a handy way to pad out post-show conversation.

Here’s a selection of our favourite tracks. To hear our full fashion show playlist, head to Spotify.

This was less a song, more a litany of hated things read out in a thick Liverpudlian accent by British post-punker Mr Pete Wylie’s then-girlfriend. “Lost keys”, “the royal family”, “stinking rich female in furs” – she disliked a lot of things, and there’s no evidence she would have approved of this collection – which was a mix of 1970s trim shearlings, suede coats, funky collars, 1990s boot-cut pants and 1960s leather jackets.

Serenading the pleasing mix of softly tailored suits, cable-knit sweaters and rollnecks was French chanteur Mr Nataf. He was joined by Echo & The Bunnymen and Vivaldi – whose Four Seasons was a great complement to some classic British menswear.

There was more than a slight winter wonderland feel to Mr Jeremy Scott’s showing in London – which was all fur coats, faux snow and macho snowboarders. And what better way to partner the theme of going to a rave in the Alps with a bit of 1990s electronica?

Mr Rodolfo Paglialunga’s menswear debut for Jil Sander saw him accompany his 1940s-style trousers and oversized coats with the Johnny Cash-like sound of Italy-based artist Mr Francis Kuipers. It made the whole feel of the show that bit more badass.

“I wanted to go back to when I was forming my DNA, back to 2005 and 2006 when I did all these military hybrid collections. I was always mixing youth culture with an element of menswear,” said Mr Barrett of his show. Indeed, music subcultures have long been a favoured reference point of his. And, considered as the first ever Gothic-rock track, “Bella Lugosi’s Dead” is as genre-forming a song as you’ll get. Like the clothes (classic knitwear meets Kaboom!-style embossing), Mr Barrett mixed old sounds with new – bolstering Bauhaus with producer du jour Arca and crowd favourite Mr James Blake.

The Italian design house’s artistic palette this season – all pinks, orange, yellows – plus Mr Tomas Maier’s inspiration (“someone who doesn’t think about clothes; he dresses from necessity” – think crumpled denim and laid-back outerwear) seemed to suit the unexpectedly melodic sound on this new one from the Pale Emperor himself Mr Marilyn Manson.

Utilising this 1970s British funk outfit, who crafted their sound from a patchwork quilt of influences including jazz, calypso and rock – Ms Angela Missoni perfectly complemented the thrown-together, traveller vibe she was going for in the clothes. Inspired by the trans-Siberian rail journey, the collection was heavy on earthy tones and shawl-collared cardigans, while the runway was awash with Persian rugs.

Ms Frida Giannini’s departure was perhaps behind Mr Gaubert’s decision to play this calming orchestral number, the soundtrack to Mr Tom Ford’s A Single Man, a nod back to former days. Whatever the thinking, we enjoyed the fashion house recalling its 1970s rock legacy with painterly colours, red blouses, berets and skinny scarves.

Etro made use of a palette of browns, khakis and hues of purple, yellow and red – and a heavy touch of paisley, which was no more evident than on the thick corduroy formalwear. The Boss backed up a dark, robust collection with the bleak “State Trooper”, from 1982 album Nebraska – which charts a paranoid criminal careering down the New Jersey turnpike.

“Balance – that’s what is important for me,” said Mr Junichi Abe backstage after his show. It was something that presented itself in the clothes – decorative stripes and checks, and organic hues in relaxed tailoring, trousers and long coats – and the music, which combined the melodic, docile tones of “First Watch” and The Beatles’ “Blackbird” with the pounding trance of Kaddyn Palmed.

“Youth on a pedestal” was Mr Simons’ distillation of his show, which took place in a warehouse on the outskirts of Paris and cast in a dim, purple light. The music was purple too – Deep Purple. Indeed, the 1970 track did much to cement Mr Simons’ tapping into memory: “I’m thinking of my own memories but also memories of influences such as Martin Margiela and Helmut Lang.”

At the Junya show – no 1970s rock, no impenetrable techno, just uplifting, smooth grooves. And it was the perfect flow for the sapeur influence, with soulful dandies grooving down the red carpet to everything from The Floaters to Dizzy Gillespie. Top hats, dress shoes, fitted suits – formal dressing was combined with body pops and swagger for a show well deserving of its ovation.