Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones – a review
Posted By Steven Lewis on June 20, 2009
Stephen Jones, Milliner
It’s unusual to fall in love with a man you haven’t met, especially if you’re straight. Nonetheless I fell in love with milliner Stephen Jones the moment I walked into Hats: An Anthology at the V&A in London this April. He had put together an exhibition that sang to anyone with a passion for hats. The exhibition could absorb a hatlover for hours.
"Inspiration"
The exhibition space was lit for falling in love, almost all the light was reserved for the cabinets, the rest of the room was left in a purple-tinted glow. As a result, there was nowhere else to look but at the hats and they had me from the first cabinet, “Inspiration”. (The exhibit progressed from Inspiration to Creation and on to The Salon, finishing with The Client.)
“Hats have to be a mirror of their age with touch of whimsy,” Stephen Jones writes in his introduction to Inspiration. And how right he is. Standout pieces in the Inspiration section included Jones’ own Tube Hat (a London Underground logo worn at a jaunty angle and held in place with a band inspired by the iconic Tube map) and his Costermonger, a flat cap covered in miniature fruit and vegetables.
My favourite hat of the exhibition was also in the Inspiration section. It was the tweed crown from Vivienne Westwood’s 1987 Harris tweed collection. What an amazing piece; celebrating the traditional through the choice of material but sending it up through the choice of form.
Vivienne Westwood's Tweed Crown
This anthology would be wonderful exhibit to show to anyone who can’t get further than Indiana Jones in his thinking about hats as fashion or as snapshots of their in time. (Not for the first time, I got called “Indy” the other day. I was wearing a flat cap.)
Stephen Jones' Still Life hat
This is true even though there was little from the world of men’s hats in the exhibition. You can’t help but see why when you’re looking in amazement at the women’s hats. How could you stand a fedora (even Indy’s) next to something as interesting and evocative as Jones’ Still Life hat. (A vibrant pink rose with green leaves fastened with a paint brush with a transparent handle and pink bristles.)
The whimsy and the creativity brought to women’s heads has no match in men’s hats and it’s a shame. Rosie tells me in the first Open Crown podcast that she saw much more creativity in men’s hats in Japan; and I hope it’s coming west. When I picture Strand Hatters or City Hatters, both of which I’ve been in recently, I picture rows of hats devoid of anything you might call whimsy or flair. For men in the west it’s perhaps challenging enough to wear a hat without pushing the envelope further than a trilby, fedora or flat cap: if you can attract Indiana Jones comments in a black Kangol flat cap, any kind of hat is “flair”.
A knitted fez from Stephen Jones' 2009 collection
Some of Stephen Jones’ whimsy is available to men through his Jonesboy label, including a knitted fez for 2009. I look at the picture and it just makes me sad he has no stockist in Australia.
Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones closed in May but it lives on through the V&A microsite, which includes some wonderful videos, and the SHOWstudio Hats Off site, featuring a panorama of the exhibition and more videos.
I can’t recommend highly enough the accompanying book. I don’t think it matters even to a lover of men’s hats that there is little mention of them in the book. It is impossible to love hats and not be captivated by the creativity evident in the hats pictured and enlighted by the insights the text gives into each of the four stages Jones lays out: inspiration, creation, salon and client. The book includes a list of further reading, biographies of milliners past and present. It’s an essential reference and it stands very much on its own; in fact I might give it a separate review later.
On Location: An interview with Stephen Jones from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.
About the author
This guy seems a medicore milliner at best and certainly far from a hatter of any real talent. I have enjoyed so much of what you have published to date Steven especially meeting James and learning about him and passing a few emails. You sir like all the many folks we know in AU seem a fine man and gentleman but your knowledge of hats is not equal to the number of years you have been wearing them. This is not a weakness nor a fault but simply a product of the mis information of sites like fedora lounge. I am sorry for this and hope to find a way to correct it all some day.
Charlie
Thanks for the comment, Charlie. I hope you’ll keep reading even when, as in this case, we must agree to disagree.