British milliner Stephen Jones makes millinery seem modern and compelling. Using materials that are often radical, and designs that range from refined to whimsical, his exquisitely crafted, quixotic hats encapsulate the fashion mood of the moment.
Jones joins us in Melbourne at NGV for an exclusive Q&A with NGV’s Senior Curator of Fashion and Textiles, Katie Somerville, discussing his extraordinary career in millinery in front of two of his most iconic hats that are currently on display.
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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 have become a place of pilgrimage and patronage, as everyone from rock stars to royalty, from Boy George to Diana, Princess of Wales and Rihanna. Since the early eighties Stephen Jones has collaborated with designers from Jean Paul Gaultier, Rei Kawakubo and Claude Montana through to his current work with Thom Browne Schiaparelli and Christian Dior. Jones’ hats have been an integral component in some of the most memorable runway spectacles of the past quarter century.
Katie Somerville is Senior Curator, Fashion and Textiles, at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). She has worked with a range of fashion and textiles collections for close to three decades, including at the National Gallery of Australia and Historic Houses Trust of NSW. During her time at the NGV she has curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions including The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture (2017), Making the Australian Quilt: 1800–1950 (2016), Express Yourself: Romance Was Born for Kids (2014–15), Martin Grant, Paris (2005–06) and Akira Isogawa: Printemps-Été (2004–05).