Bah Oui music

© Vitorino Coragem

Some people come to Bah Oui for the clothes and stay for the music. This is no accident: the store always has its own soundtrack, as carefully curated as the selection of pieces on the hangers.

I've been building these playlists for years, a kind of sonic diary of the store. There's no single theme, but there are many moods — Gainsbourg, Nougaro, Barbara, Nina Simone, David Bowie, Neil Young, Charles Aznavour, Iggy Pop, Leonard Cohen, Gréco, Johnny Cash, Bardot, Billie Holiday, voices that span decades without losing their elegance. Then there are the soundtracks, the travel tunes, the summer songs for when the heat calls for lightness. There are also the "fine melancholy" days for when the space calls for filled silence, and even more introspective ones for quieter afternoons.

The music changes with the store, and the store changes with the music. Sometimes it's a customer, a friend who brings a suggestion and it ends up in a new playlist; other times it's me rediscovering an old voice and building a moment around it, finding it in a movie, hearing it at a dinner, at a party. Many are from Inês Maria Meneses, who has been with the store even before it opened, from Rádio Futura, from Vidro Azul. All together, they are my complex world.

If you want to take a piece of Bah Oui with you, even far from Rua das Flores, search for "Bah Oui" on Spotify. It's all there — the store can also be heard.