Lance
The London milliner Stephen Jones is a surrealist. Born in 1957, he graduated from London's St Martin's School of Art in 1979 and began to make hats for friends. It was at the beginning of that period of creativity and outrageousness that was to make London the centre for wild and iconoclastic fashion ideas. Pop music and clubbing were at the heart of all youthful culture and they had an enormous influence on Jones. He made hats for Boy George, Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran and, by 1980, was sufficiently established to open his own shop. Stephen Jones is possibly the most original milliner working today. His hats echo Schiaparelli's from the 1930s, but are always completely up to the minute in mood. He entirely understands the zeitgeist of the times. In the Fashion Institute of Technology's huge 'Fashion and Surrealism' exhibition of 1987, Jones' hats stood out as having an artistic integrity rare in fashion, holding their own with the work of some of the greatest designers of the twentieth century.
Colin McDowell
'Hats: Status, Style, Glamour'
