Hi Peter. The last time I saw you was at the amazing 2023/24 CHANEL Métiers d’art show inManchester, and before that at the beautiful ‘Free Your Mind’ at the Aviva Studios/Factory International building. I think both events were in part a testament to the legacy of Factory and the influence of Joy Division and New Order, and the part you played within that world in those days. Did you ever imagine that a small indie label and those fucked up outsider bands would have such a wide ranging influence all these years later? I think it’s taken us all by a slow-motion surprise. Has it you?

––Bernard Sumner, musician (Joy Division, New Order, Electronic, and Bad Lieutenant)

Absolutely, slow motion! There was a logical inevitability to it all, but sometimes things take so long that you feel they’ll never happen or that you’ll never live to see it yourself. Because I was party to the planning of the CHANEL show, I’d say that ultimately I felt more amazed than surprised. At the finale when Virginie Viard came out to take a bow – in the rain – to the sensational sound of ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’, it was like a Rubik’s Cube that had taken forty years to resolve.

Who is more fun to work with, Suede or New Order?

––Brett Anderson, musician (Suede)

Suede are fun.
New Order are family.

Excerpt from Middle Plane Issue No.9 (Summer/Autumn 2024). Read the full group interview, with further questions from Raf Simons, Maureen Paley, Wolfgang Tillmans and more, by ordering your copy here.

Photographer: Oliver Hadlee Pearch