First look: Stephen Jones’ extraordinary headwear to be celebrated in Paris exhibition

The British milliner Stephen Jones, recognized for his ‘transformative and enjoyable’ headwear – because the designer described in his 2016 Rizzoli-published tome, Souvenirs – is to be celebrated in a brand new exhibition at Paris’s Palais Galliera gallery, it has been introduced as we speak (18 July 2024).

Titled ‘Stephen Jones, chapeaux d’artiste’ (‘hats of an artist’), the career-spaning exhibition will embody 4 many years of creation, from Jones’ rise to prominence within the early Nineteen Eighties as a part of the Blitz Child and New Romantic actions – epitomised by the liberated, outré outfits worn by figures like Leigh Bowery and Boy George – to the heights of high fashion, creating millinery for Dior, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler, amongst others.

First look: Stephen Jones at Paris’ Palais Galliera

Having beforehand been celebrated in London with ‘Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones’, a 2009 exhibition on the V&A, the Palais Galliera present will shed explicit mild on his work in Paris. It’s right here, says curator Miren Arzalluz – who has labored on the exhibition alongside Jones, the exhibition’s creative advisor – that ‘his imaginative and prescient of style and his artistic processes have been utterly reworked.’

Certainly, it was his time with John Galliano at Dior which might show formative, working in artistic synergy with the designer to dream up a few of style’s most arresting headwear. It’s a home that Jones continues to work with as we speak, collaborating with each Kim Jones at Dior Males, and Maria Grazia Chiuri on womenswear and high fashion. A number of of those works will function within the exhibition.

Elsewhere, objects have been chosen for the way in which they pay ode to the Parisian girl and her costume codes, or to town’s couturiers. Spanning 400 works, together with 170 hats, different ephemera will embody preparatory drawings, archival images and pictures from style reveals, a few of which has by no means been beforehand displayed. The organisers name him ‘essentially the most ‘Frenchified’ of English milliners, endowing Paris style together with his daring power and boundless creativity’.