Stephen Jones
It’s a hats off for the first-ever Conversation with Stephen Jones, artistic director of Dior hats since 1996 held yesterday at M7 in Msheireb, as part of the Qatar Museums’ Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams.
A visual feast for kapelophile or a person who loves wearing hats, his exhibit which is on display at M7 features 160 hats which he installed himself.
Speaking to The Peninsula, Jones who is considered one of the most revered milliners of our time, said that a “Hat completes the look, it can make simple clothes look like high-fashion and it can give the confidence to a woman that otherwise she might not have because (a hat) is a bit of a costume, that’s what makes it special.”
The legendary milliner added: “Each hat contains a story, and when you start to do fashion design, hats just echo throughout the clothes.”
Asked if in the future he will be making a headpiece especially designed for Middle Eastern women, he responded: “Possibly, yes, you know people wear veil absolutely but I can do something that may coordinate with that, and that’s a big new design challenge.”
For the coming years, Jones assured that we can expect a lot more in Dior hats. “I’m working on a very new technique, especially on knitted hats to do knitted shapes so they are stretchy and comfortable,” he explained.
As part of the programme, Jones gifted over his latest book “Dior Hats – From Christian Dior to Stephen Jones” to Christopher Fink, chair of the fashion design at VCUarts Qatar. The book, published for the 2020 exhibit at the Christian Dior Museum in Granville, France, celebrates more than seventy years of exquisite hats.
Fink said the book will greatly help the students at VCUarts Qatar.
Before Jones became part of Dior, he wore a lot of hats – he designed headpieces for Britain’s royal family, he was also commissioned by the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, to create head treatments for the exhibition “Camp: Notes on Fashion.” And in 2009 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, he curated the hugely popular exhibition “Hats, an Anthology by Stephen Jones,” breaking attendance records around the world. In 2010, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to fashion.
Catch Dior hats along with the vast array of haute couture garments including nine from the collection of H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, sketches, vintage perfumes elements, archival videos, and accessories, among others at the Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibited at M7. It will be on view until March 30, 2022.
