« When Miren [Arzalluz, directrice du Palais Galliera] offered to exhibit my work at the museum, I thought I would have the right to a display case in the basement”, remembers Stephen Jones. The modesty of this 67-year-old English milliner is to his credit, but the reality is very different: from October 19, 2024 to March 16, 2025, the Palais Galliera, Fashion Museum of the City of Paris, is devoting a very complete which unfolds in its majestic spaces on the ground floor.
“We wanted to approach Stephen Jones’ work thematically, but also geographically, like an initiatory journey that begins in the south of England, where he grew up, passes through London, where he trained, until his arrival in Paris in the 1980s”, explains scientific commissioner Marie-Laure Gutton, who also wanted to emphasize its link with the French capital.
A busy schedule? No doubt. It is rare for headgear to be the subject of separate exhibitions, and perhaps the Palais Galliera wanted to compensate for this singularity by imagining an abundant story. Initially, the course focuses on hats disconnected from silhouettes, most of them made by Stephen Jones for his own brand. This is the most fun part, the one where we come across knitted hats reproducing an English breakfast (sausage and fried eggs included), a headband bristling with Barbie legs, a royal crown which is soft because it is made of felt… All lit up with a disco ball and to a soundtrack chosen by Stephen Jones, who gives pride of place to the musicians he knew in his youth in London, such as Spandau Ballet or Culture Club.
Shaped like a Minitel or a giant penis
When the milliner lands in Paris, the subject becomes more serious, and the exhibition accentuates the feature by bringing Stephen Jones’ hats into dialogue with those of renowned couturiers. A magnificent turquoise bell by Jeanne Lanvin dating from 1927, all in metallic blackbird feathers, faces a Jones felt covered in peacock feathers from the late 1990s. During his prolific career, the milliner had fun to imagine hats inspired by Chanel, Schiaparelli, Dior… The contrast between the classicism of French heritage and the fantasy of the British makes you smile.
Playful and offbeat, this first sequence has the potential to attract an audience that is not usually interested in fashion, and even to appeal to children, of whom the museum has thought of by installing special cartels. The second part of the exhibition, which shows Jones’ work for couturiers, offers complete silhouettes and is closer to what one usually finds in fashion museums.
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