Millinery in Motion: Stephen Jones
April 2009
Fashion in Motion is a series of live catwalk events presented at the V&A. Featuring some of the greatest designers of our time, Fashion in Motion brings catwalk couture to a wider audience by modelling it against the beautiful backdrop of the Museum.
On Friday, 3 April 2009, tying in with the V&A's exhibition 'Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones', Fashion In Motion presented the work of world famous hat designer Stephen Jones, alongside five of London's the most exciting new milliners.
Hats by Piers Atkinson, Nasir Mazhar, Flora McLean, Justin Smith and Noel Stewart highlighted the ongoing importance of London as a key creative centre for millinery, a trend established in the early 1980s by Jones himself and strengthened by the work of designers such as Philip Treacy.
Each show featured an introduction from Stephen Jones.
View transcript of video
Stephen Jones: Today we did fashion in Motion or millinery in Motion rather. And it was myself introducing five young designers, these are the people on the vanguard of millinery London and they are extraordinary people. Often they use very sculptural techniques or very unusual materials to create very innovative effects. When people see today' s show, some of the hats absolutely they will see will be very challenging and they will think I can' t wear that. But actually its making them think and talk about it thinking about the options of how to decorate your head, about self preservation. And the other thing is that hats are just eye candy - you know if people come in and here and are entertained for half an hour, well why not it' s a Friday afternoon for Gods sake.
Justin Smith: Hey I' m Justin Smith I have a label called ' J Smith ESQr' and today I' m showing five different pieces from five different collections that I have done. So there are a couple of pieces from my graduation going through to 1st to second to third collections that I have shown during London Fashion week. There were three pieces... and these were all independent pieces in the actual show I did for London Fashion Week, my third show, but I' m actual just styling them together for the show today just to rework it a little bit to make it a bit more exciting. so they all go on like that. And then there is a piece from my second collection which is ' Kaleidoscope' that was all plastics, vacuum forming and lots of fringing and it was modular so each hat came up of 5, 6, 7 pieces and it all fits together. So this one has a beaded wig, then a plastic top and then… a fringing brim. They' re all worn together, so that' s the general idea. So I have taken that kit-form idea and recreated a few of the hats today.
Piers Atkinson: There' s a big art push behind... these hats so its not just fashion its each collection as an art collection. To be shown on the runway and also in a case in the V& A is for me very much putting my hats in an art context. And of course the seal of approval really from Stephen Jones and form the V& A, I can' t think of a better seal of approval than those two names... brands I suppose you' d call them.
Flora Mclean: I do a project with a hair stylist call Nick Moody and we have done this for the last six years making Hair-style hats its called ' Iconic Heads' . And this is newest additions to the collection and we made a special block of wood... that' s been turned then carved to form the shape. Nick Rosby - I was at college with him - and they had started a company when they left the Royal College of Art and we worked on this together. It' s been dip moulded in PVC so you can imagine the shape that was inside here, instead of it being wood it' s a metal form that is heated, the liquid PVC and its been dipped. So it' s sort of like hot custard and that' s the last drip as it leaves and then you put it in the cool water to cool it. Yeah, this is what I' m known for, this is my epitaph if - if have got one, the beret.
Nasir Mazhar: It' s not real supposed to be about anything really. It' s just meant to be about making an object that looks good. It' s more a visual thing, your making something, creating something. So sometimes if you tried to make it in chiffon this might not work it just varies you just start some where you start doing the twirls and you take it from there really. It progresses it leads its own direction sometimes, you don' t really have control over it and there isn' t a specific aim.
Noel Stewart: Its loosely based on honey suckle, but people call it the ' Dragonfly hat' because they think it looks like dragonfly wings. Its very simple its just ostrich quills fused together with Silk Tulle stretched between them, so it creates an elegant and soft light look at the same time as being quite dramatic. This hat is made out of an embroidered plastic crin fabric... its a one piece of fabric, which we embroidered and ruched into the middle, fused together a crown so that the rim under-lays but its basically a square that' s supposed to look soft - hopefully. A bit light and transparent and quite easy to wear. This hat is based on Coventry Cathedrals baptistery window which I saw at a wedding that I was at. The window was hand painted by... myself, this was painted by me but the original was painted by John Piper and the drama of it got me going for this season. So it' s based on that cathedral. I just hope it inspires people to wear hats more and inspires people that hats are quite special and amazing. I think the exhibition itself is reconnecting people with the idea of millinery and I think a lot of people who had been to it thought ' oh, I can wear a hat again now' . Certainly my generation didn' t feel comfortable wearing hats, which once they got into it they absolutely loved it. So I hope it does that at the very least and feel inspired by the whole discipline would be really good.
Steven Jones: I think in 500 years time we will look back and say wasn' t it strange the end of the 20th century beginning of the 21st, that people didn' t put things on their heads because actually people love to decorate their heads.
