The New Puritans

 By Chris Brooks

The band currently creating a commotion in the fashion world is a four-piece who go by the name of These New Puritans. The band consists of Jack Barnett, his twin brother George Barnett, Thomas Hein and Sophie Sleigh-Johnson. Causing an unlikely racket loosely based around punk and synth riffs, they have been described as "Sharp, strange and enchanting” and produce threatening punk  music inspired by The Fall, Frank Kafka, and Sonic Youth. The band seemingly got their break when the then Dior head menswear designer Hedi Slimane chose them to provide the music to the Dior Homme 2007 fashion show.

Hedi appreciated the new wave sound of These New Puritans as well as the aesthetic value that the band members were able to lend to the catwalk show. It's easy to see what attracted Slimane to this intriguing band, who specified that the opening page to their website should be a crossword puzzle, further emphasising their cryptic allure. This hasn’t been lost on their fans who seem to appreciate their Monty-Python esq typically British self deprecating humor.  For the band to be selected for Dior Homme was quite an achievement, Hedi Slimane called Barnett a week before the launch of the 07 collection with the task of producing a fifteen minute track to accompany the catwalk show, within 4 days  (in Barnett’s words) “ of very little sleep” the band produced Navigate Navigate, a piece that many critics have claimed, stole the show from Slimane’s Dior Homme collection. The band’s drummer George Barnett spoke of the meeting with Hedi Slimane“It was apparent that we agreed on certain things, namely fashion and music ideas. From that it led really organically to working with him. It was never something that was sorted out for us or me it was more of a happening.”        

Given free reign by Slimane to work out any composition of music for the collection the band felt relieved that the commission wasn’t given any restraints that could have stifled their creativity, speaking of the show again George says “In general, it’s good that fashion and music cross over, actually. They are both creative industries and they obviously go together. That’s what makes Hedi Slimane good because he is always crossing over art, music and subcultures.” Given the style and sound of this band MFN are sure that they can only go on to big things, currently doing the Europian festival circuit you can see them live in an intimate setting, before they become the stars that they are destined to be.  

Recent comments...

You must be registered and logged in to post a comment.

All comments submitted on this page do not express the views of MFN, we will endeavor to remove any offensive, rude, defamatory comments.