Stephen Jones Millinery
‘Reflectionsss’
‘Reflectionsss', from our 2023 winter collection is my interpretation of one of the most familiar hat shapes: the boater. It is a form which transcends history and culture, from a 19th century barber to Lady Gaga. Reflectionsss was inspired by my observation of the hats in the infinity mirrors in my shop where multiple reflections enrich the presence and charm of each hat. I took this most basic form and morphed it into a triple boater, where a brim becomes a crown, which becomes a brim, which becomes a crown and on and on, reminiscent of an impossible etching by Maurits Escher.
It is the madness of the mad hatter that makes millinery such a delightful craft.
Not for sale.
“It fits into the theme of ‘Heritage’ because it is a very traditional shape. The boater is one of the reference points of millinery of the 20th and 21st Century.”
Materials and Techniques
Using traditional tailoring materials of black barathea and grosgrain constructed with the most intense hand-craft, the shape appears to float effortlessly and is secretly enlivened by a multi-coloured duchess satin lining in jewel tones of blue, green and vivid pink.
Millinery Heritage
“By complete chance, I transferred from the millinery workroom form the tailoring workroom at the Couture House Lachasse, where I was under the wing of Mrs. Shirley hex. She showed me the glories of Millinery and I took to it, like a duck to water.
I don’t think you can be a milliner today and not be aware of the past, because we have to acknowledge the past in order to build on it in order to create something contemporary. ”
About Stephen Jones
Born in Cheshire, and schooled in Liverpool, Stephen Jones burst on to the London fashion scene during its explosion of street style in the late seventies. By day, he was a student at St Martins; after dark he was one of that era's uncompromising style-blazers at the legendary Blitz nightclub - always crowned with a striking hat of his own idiosyncratic design.
By 1980, Jones had opened his first millinery salon in the heart of London's Covent Garden. Those premises soon became a place of pilgrimage and patronage, as everyone from rock stars to royalty, from Boy George to Diana, Princess of Wales, identified Jones as the milliner who would help them make arresting headlines. Forty years later, Jones's era-defining edge continues to attract a celebrity clientele which includes, Rihanna, Mick Jagger, and the Princesses.
Now, as ever, at the forefront of fashion, his beguiling hats routinely grace the most celebrated magazine covers and enliven window displays of the world's most stylish stores. From runways to racecourses, from pop-promos to royal garden parties, millinery by Stephen Jones adds the exclamation mark to every fashion statement.