Inspiration Series I Stephen Jones OBE & Matty Bovan

23 October 2018 

Stephen Jones AND Matty Bovan?! Aren't you lucky? These two ground-breaking designers chatted with one another at Sarabande, fresh from SS19, to discuss designer collaboration, use of materials and the creative process. Stephen and Matty were in conversation with the fabulous Tamsin Blanchard, British fashion journalist, author, and lecturer!

STEPHEN JONES OBE

Stephen Jones OBE burst on to the London fashion scene during its explosion of street style in the late seventies and, by 1980, Jones had opened his first millinery salon in the heart of London's Covent Garden. Those premises soon became a place of pilgrimage and patronage, as everyone from Boy George to Diana, Princess of Wales, identified Jones as the milliner who would help them make arresting headlines. Forty years later, Jones's era-defining edge continues to attract a celebrity clientele which includes, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Mick Jagger, and the Princesses.

Now, as ever, at the forefront of fashion, his beguiling hats routinely grace the most celebrated magazine covers and enliven window displays of the world's most stylish stores. From runways to race-courses, from pop-promos to royal garden parties, millinery by Stephen Jones adds the exclamation mark to every fashion statement.

MATTY BOVAN

Having grown up in York, where he is still based, Matty Bovan, 28, graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2015 with an MA specialising in Fashion Knitwear. His 12-look graduate collection opened the final show, exhibiting his cacophony of sculptural knits, textures and wild, handmade adornments, which earned him the L’Oréal Professional Creative Award, closely followed by the LVMH Graduate Prize 2015.

Nominated for British Emerging Womenswear Talent at the Fashion Awards 2017, his work is often seen worn by the likes of Adwoa Aboah, Fran Summers, Georgia May Jagger, Hailey Baldwin, Harriet Verney, Noomi Rapace, Rita Ora, and Winnie Harlow.