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AS A MISFIT SCHOOLGIRL—“a proper weirdo, a little
troglodyte,” as she puts it—growing up in the rural Cots-
wolds, the perfectly exquisite FKA Twigs (née Tahliah
Debrett Barnett; her childhood nickname came from her
ability to crack her finger joints) was obsessed by classical
ballet and opera, both of which she studied intensively.
“Certain things can just change your life forever,” she says.
Raised by a single mother obsessed by Westwood and
Gaultier, Twigs first introduced herself to style through a
nostalgia for the flamboyant New Romantic movement
that flourished after punk. In pre-internet England, Twigs
looked at old vinyl record sleeves for inspiration—Adam
Ant and Bow Wow Wow’s Annabella Lwin were idols—and
improvised the looks with her mum’s hand-me-downs and
thrift-store trouvailles. (Her current collaborators—includ-
ing designer Ed Marler, the Central Saint Martins wild
child; his partner, stylist Matthew Josephs; and performance
artist Theo Adams—all revere the movement too.)
Twigs has been performing professionally since she was
13 and a dancer in the local ZooNation company, but when
she moved to London at 17 she soon became involved in an
underground performance-art cabaret scene. “I had a boy-
friend who said if I got a job at The Box, he’d dump me,”
she says, “so I went and got a job there and dumped him,
just out of principle. I’d sing old jazz songs and walk on
tables and kick people’s drinks off and be generally outra-
geous whilst singing this beautiful jazz song and remaining
completely snatched in a beautiful dress. I’d come up with
the ideas, and my mum would make all the costumes.”
Ever the fashion chameleon, Twigs hit the Paris couture
earlier this year variously dressed in giraffe-print boots and
a logo bucket hat chez Valentino; a Margiela skirt fash-
ioned from granddad pants, a striped shirt with peekaboo
cutouts to reveal her lace girdle, an opal tooth cap, and
white Tabi boots for Margiela Artisanal, where she was
enraptured by her ardent admirer John Galliano’s puff
ball gown, which was originally fashioned as matelot
pants. (“My mom dressed me as a sailor until I was three
or four,” she explains.)
After her London move, a chance meeting with the
photographer Matthew Stone soon led to a street-casting
shoot for i-D. Her portrait made the magazine’s cover,
and in what she calls “genius serendipity,” she put out her
EP1 at the same time through YouTube. It went viral, and
in short order Twigs put out two more EPs and a full-
length album, LP1. Then she discovered that she had six
fibroid tumors. “I was in pain every single day for about
a year,” she says. After successful surgery last year, “I spent
some time discovering who I was, both musically and
stylewise. You can’t slink around in black mesh your whole
life, can you?”
Five years later—along with her first feature-film role,
opposite Lucas Hedges in the Shia LaBeouf–penned Honey
Boy—she has some powerful new music to unleash, pro-
duced with Chilean-American composer Nicolas Jaar.
“It’s very delicate, very heartbroken,” she says, and it reflects
not only her health issues but her klieg-lit split from Robert
Pattinson. “It’s classical but still a bit hood.” In preparation
for her tour, Twigs is training in the Chinese martial art of
Wushu, which she practices with her sword, named Lilith.
“Literally all I do is train,” she says. “I’ve got something a
bit wrong with me.” @THE FAERIE QUEENE
Born in the rolling
hills of southwestern
England, Twigs
plays the part of the
woodland sprite—
both delicate and
dangerous—with ease.
Maison Margiela
Artisanal designed by
John Galliano dress;
(212) 989-7612.