Hats off to milliner Stephen Jones

December 18th, 2008

Love hats? Then check out January 09’s Vogue for a lovely article by Daisy Garnett on the milliner Stephen Jones - who has been making hats for 30 years. I sometimes think that Vogue profiles can be a bit overly-gushing, but in this one Steven Jones does come across as someone you’d like to be your friend (and to make you a hat, obviously). My favourite quote from him is: “I just lived my life and turned it into a hat”.

Stephen Jones has spent the past few months co-curating a major exhibition (called, rather excitingly, Hats) that opens in the Victoria & Albert Museum in February 2009. it sounds like a must-visit for any millinery fans as up to 400 hats from 600BC to the present day.

Anyway, this sent me scurrying over to the Stephen Jones website to check out his current collection. The milliner has a main collection called ‘Stephen Jones’ Model Millinery - plus two diffusion lines called ‘Miss Jones’ and ‘JonesBoy’. His hat prices range from £100 to £1500.

My favourites are this hat made of buttons - which look like a crown of flowers from a distance - called Princess, from the Model Millinery Covent Garden A/W 2008 collection, and the gorgeous Limo, a shiny top hat with a pink rose, also from the Model Millinery Covent Garden A/W 2008 collection. You can view the whole Model Millinery collection here, and the Miss Jones and Jonesboy diffusion hat collections here.

I think having a hat made just for you is a bit of a rite of passage, I’m definitely going to get round to it at some point if only because I seem to have a big head (metaphorically and literally). I don’t look wierdly top heavy, but hats never seem to fit.

January Vogue also a very non-luvvy piece about Cate Blanchett who is featured in a Patrick Demarchelier shoot wearing Chloe and Lanvin. Plus there’s a string of pics of Cate looking suitably glam at various red carpet events. I have to say though, I went off her a bit when I read in the accompanying interview that she doesn’t like toast. I mean, who doesn’t like toast? Weird.