Stephen Jones is one of the fashion world’s greatest living milliners. His collections span the last three decades and he has collaborated with the majority of fashion heavyweights, including John Galliano, Rei Kawakubo and Vivienne Westwood.
At the V&A until May, Jones presents one of the first major exhibitions entirely and hopelessly devoted to hats, spanning headgear’s illustrious history over the past 400 years. Every type of head decoration is covered: the cloche, the cap, the head-dress, the beret, the visor, the cartwheel, the bonnet, the top, the stetson, the toque, the breton, the turban, the tricone, the hood, the mask, the tiara, the fedora, the fez… you get the idea.
The exhibition aims to chart the history of hats and hopes to provoke a revival for fashionable, often whimsical head gear. It begins with a display cabinet devoted to the two hat world staples – the bonnet and the top hat – and features Queen Victoria’s former and Prince Albert’s latter. From here, we’re led around the recently renovated Porter Gallery (fashion fans will have seen the disappointing Fashion Vs Sport exhibition here in 2008). Three sections in the exhibition space reveal hats collected together by inspiration, material or client. In theory, this should work – hats of similar materials and processes can be viewed together ranging as far back as the 15th century alongside hats from the last ten years including, predominantly, those by Jones. In practice, the exhibition is a bit of a mess. There’s actually no feeling of history (apart from a few delicious clips from the 50s during the great Salon days). It’s easy to appreciate the beauty and splendour of each hat but hard to get a feel of how things have developed and progressed.
In the Inspiration area, hats are grouped together by what has aroused particular designs to create these pieces. There’s London – which includes Piers Atkinson’s reworking of 3 New Era caps tailored to appear like Mickey Mouse ears and aptly titled Dalston. Yawn. There’s Jones’ ‘Underground’ hat that takes the form of a pillar-box hat, where the body is the tube emblem and the elastic fasteners are coloured lines like those of the public transport system. I swear this is the only exhibition ever where you’ll find a Smiffy’s plastic policeman’s helmet (2008) given the same prestige as a 1987 Harris Tweed crown (by Jones for Vivienne Westwood).
For materials, Jones collects hats together to depict how the same material has been used in varying ways over the centuries. This is alluring, but it’s easy for the eye to wander to the more striking pieces from the modern era and miss the qualities of more traditional pieces.
The Client area doesn’t give much away either, but does include a good collection of hats popularised by celebrity culture and has a voyeuristic feel rather than a studious one. There’s headgear from the hat-wearing contemporaries – JK of Jamiroquai, Sarah Jessica Parker, Camilla Parker Bowles, Erin O’ Connor and Kylie Minogue.
Wonderfully, Jones dedicates a corner of the exhibition to today’s up and coming and established milliners. This small collective with a similar base to that of Jones and Treacy (St Martins graduates, mainly) aim to push the boundaries of millinery even further. There’s Nasir Mazher’s stunning chiffon and satin veil, Justin Smith’s Winehouse-inpired ‘Amy’ creation, and Soren Bach’s pom-pom ensemble famously worn by Björk.
Hats are displayed atop mannequin heads on poles as high as 6′ – with the number of that hat at the bottom. This might work when cross referencing the hats to the information in the gallery by oneself – a luxury any of us are likely to enjoy. Instead, it’s a constant battle to fight past fellow viewers to find the corresponding card (that is, after you’ve found the bloody number of that hat all the way down). There’s also a distinct lack of imagery to accompany the pieces – our appetites are only slightly satisfied by a tiny slide show of photographs of celebrities from the last decade. It’s also a shame that 95% of the hats are on heads alone – to chart the history and recognise a particular hat’s authority and cultural position it would have occasionally been nice to see a hat presented with clothing from the time (particularly with designer collaborations where the piece has inspired the collection, or vice versa).
See Hats… if you can. It’s a fantastic exhibition which presents what can often be overlooked as a statement piece for any man or woman’s wardrobe. It’s a shame that practical layout has taken a back-seat to make way for over-aesthetic and pretentious exhibition design, but this shouldn’t put you off exploring the splendour of all things hats.
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