Stephen jones millinery biography for kids

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In materials that were often radical, and in designs that ranged from refined to whimsical, his exquisitely crafted, quixotic hats encapsulated the fashion mood of the moment.

Thirty five years later, Jones's era-defining edge continues to attract a celebrity clientele which includes, Rihanna, Dita von Teese, Mick Jagger, and the Princesses.

Rei Kawakubo is only one name in the rollcall of fashion designers with whom Jones has collaborated.

The city in the late Seventies was home to a creative turmoil that found its expressions in the whimsical parties thrown in underground clubs, like The Blitz, which the milliner frequented wearing on his head his own creations.

By 1980, Stephen Jones opened his first boutique and atelier, in which he sold his first creations to loyal clients, from music stars to Royals.

His hats reflect the multitude of his inspirations and his desire to amaze and wonder and the collaborations with designers shows how the can stress his crafts to interpret the glamour of John Galliano’s fashion to the punk crafts of Vivienne Westwood and the more conceptual vision of Comme des Garçons.

In 2009, Jones even curated an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, entitled ‘Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones’.

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. Since the early 80s Stephen Jones has collaborated with designers from Vivienne Westwood and Claude Montana throughout to his current work with Raf Simons for Dior, Jones' hats have been an integral component in some of the most memorable runway spectacles of the past quarter century.

Today, Jones' retail boutique, design studio and workroom are all located in a charming Georgian townhouse close to the site of his very first millinery salon.

Everyone from showgirls to dictators knows that by wearing a hat they will be centre of attention.’

For sure Stephen Jones knows how to make hats that get everybody’s attention. It was an instant success, with Jones commenting in 2008: “Overnight, I had a business”.

Through hats he developed a keen interest in fashion history, particularly the drama and exaggerated glamour of the 1950s.

Rare footage of Stephen Jones in his first salon

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Jones left Saint Martin’s in 1979, the same year that he became a regular attendee of London’s Blitz nightclub in Covent Garden for New Romantics and fans of new wave music.

Jones soon requested a transfer to the next-door millinery department presided over by Shirley Hex, but was told he had to make a hat from scratch first. On New Year’s Eve 1980, Jones had his head shaved by drunk friends, leading him to discover that without hair, his head was a perfect woman’s stock size, and that he could become his own fit model, developing all his ideas and designs upon himself.

1982 saw Jones’ first Paris fashion show and his first televised show.

The hat he eventually submitted, his first original millinery creation, was a cardboard pillbox covered in blue crêpe de Chine and trimmed with a plastic iris, sprayed silver that his mother had received as a free gift from a petrol station in the 1960s. In 1980, Blitz’s owner Steve Strange provided financial backing for Jones’ first millinery salon, which opened nearby in the basement of the trendy store PX, Endell Street, Covent Garden on 1 October.

In his innocence, Jones had not realised that millinery flowers were traditionally made of silk, but Hex approved the hat, commenting on the flower’s modernity. 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.

In 2013 Stephen launched his first collection at Debenhams, called 'Top Hat by Stephen Jones,' which is sold in 40 stores across the UK and online. 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.

In addition to his Model Millinery collection, he designs the widely-distributed Miss Jones and JonesBoy diffusion ranges. Although he enjoyed being taught by Peter Lewis Crown, the designer-owner of the London couture house Lachasse, he had little prior sewing experience, and so in order to develop his skills Crown secured Jones a summer placement in Lachasse’s tailoring workroom.

Referencing the exhibition curated in 1971 by Cecil Beaton, the milliner selected from the Museum’s archive hats and head-pieces to tell with his own words the history and craft of millinery, from research and inspirations, and through the atelier to the boutique; a creative path that he since long has learned to enjoy and overturn.