For this exhibition and accompanying catalogue, Anna Piaggi, international style icon and journalist of Italian Vogue, pays homage to Stephen Jones in the form of a photo collage, especially designed for the exhibition. Together with Jones, Brado Fabiani and Luca Stoppini, she created a series of images of her own collection of Stephen Jones hats, in the familiar environment of her apartment in Milan.
Anna Piaggi is one of Stephen Jones’s most loyal fans. She suggested the title ‘Stephen Jones & The Accent of Fashion’, referring to the unique accent Stephen Jones brings in every new collaboration with designers.
Just as accents in a text can lead the reader to its intended reading, or to pronounce and interpret the text correctly, a Stephen Jones hat brings its own specific punctuation to a silhouette, to the overall image of a collection, a photograph or a film. In language, accents often sit at a 45 degree angle, the angle most often used by Jones when placing a hat on someone’s head. For the British, moreover, an accent in text is something rather exotic since they rarely appear in the English language.