Stephen Jones
About
Stephen Jones was born in Liverpool, England in 1957. He graduated in 1979 from St. Martin's School of Art in London. When Stephen Jones left St. Martin's School of Art in London in 1979, hats were yet to become high fashion news for the young. Ethnic styles had spread from the mid-1970s onward, drably cloaking the fashion-buying public with serious good taste and leaving little room for wit or fantasy.
He started off well. In 1979 he designed a hat collection for Fiorucci.
He then joined the eminent French house of Lachasse briefly before opening his own business in 1980. Jone's often asymmetric and outrageous hats quickly became popular with designers such as Jean-Paul Gaultier, Claude Montana, Thierry Mugler and Zandra Rhodes.
The Look
Jones was a champion of the eccentric, the stylish, and the innovative. He could be seen emerging from the morning train at Paddington, dressed like the other commuters in smart pinstriped suiting but with black patent stilettos emerging from his immaculate turnups. He was a great ornament to the clubs and parties of the era, usually wearing one of his own asymmetric and intriguing hats perched on his bald head. An enthusiastic self-publicist, his charm and good humor endeared him to many. Jones' salons—the first in Covent Garden's P.X.—were unique environments, swathed in lush fabric and dripping with gilt cupids, where one might gaze leisurely at his always astonishing and delightful creations. He reinterpreted the chic and quirky styles of the past, cleverly draping, molding, and trimming his hats in a way so personal as to be entirely of its own time. Moreover, Jones' hats are well crafted—a reflection of early work at the traditional couture house of Lachasse.
Who Wears It
Madonna, Boy George and George Michael, U2