In his twelve years of designing and creating wondrous chapeaux, Stephen Jones has accrued quite a repertoire of strange and bizarre tales that have tested his ample sense of humour (a definite necessity in the field of millinery). They range from the dubious - the exceptionally wealthy customer who knocked on his door one day, ordered twenty hats and paid for them in cash sight unseen, to the "night-marish" - although Stephen is "very, very careful" when he makes a hat for a particular occasion that he doesn't make another like it, there was the case of the two very well-known pop stars who arrived at the same party wearing the same hat, a situation that was ultimately resolved in fisticuffs. "You lose customers in these situations but you have to laugh about it...."

Then there was the time that Stephen was caught literally without his shirt clad only in his infamous walk shorts with his bald head gleaming by the unprepared high-powered duo of Grace Mirabella and Daniel Salem, formerly the gurus of American Vogue. "They had set up an appointment with me when they were in London several years ago but unfortunately they had mixed up the days", recalls Stephen. "It was the day after Ascot, I had given everybody the day off and I was in my old workroom which looked like a disaster after all the turmoil. I was wearing shorts and nothing else and I was cutting out a bridal veil when they walked in for their appointment. In my visions, they were just about the two most important people in the world and thank heavens, they just roared with laughter. I told them that I was terribly sorry but I would have to continue working on the veil because the bride was getting married the next morning. Grace ended up answering my phone for me!"

Now, a boyish Jones sits in his London workroom wearing a yellow straw hat covering his clean shaven head, long walk shorts and a fluorescent shirt emblazoned with the starring names of the Fashion Follies '88 - Vivienne Westwood, Rifat Ozbek, Zandra Rhodes...Jones has established a Culture Club of his own amongst some of the most innovative fashion designers in both London and Paris. They clothe the body and Jones swathes the head in hats that are always startling, often cheeky, mostly chic, and frequently in defiance of physical law.

"We have to use every trick in the book and we often do", says Jones pointing to a hat that is decidedly anti-gravitational. "If you want a top hat made of chiffon, we can do it. If you want a soft beret from plastic, we can do that too. There is a strong element of trickery involved. We use lots of different things inside the actual hat and the covering fabric is in a way, immaterial to the final structure of the hat. It is rather like the foundation of a house - there is an internal structure and the rest is outer decoration".

The construction analogy is not an incidental one. In fact it was the architectural sway of millinery that first attracted a young Jones to his profession twelve years ago. Rather than fulfilling a childhood ambition - "I fell into it actually. I'm not one of those people who from the age of four had wanted to make hats - far, far from it", a young Stephen had really wanted to go to Art School using "My hippy sister, who was quite a bit older than me", as an example. His parents bristled at the idea and so upon leaving boarding school, Stephen embarked on a career in architecture only to take a year off to "learn about life" as a barman in France. He garnered sufficient funds on his travels to return to London and put himself through St. Martins Art School. Through a process of elimination, Jones did the interview rounds of the curriculum offered, "I certainly wasn't as tidy and organised as a graphic designer has to be and I thought that if I was going to live and work in London - I'm from Liverpool originally - finances were important so sculpture/ceramics didn't seem viable. The only thing left was fashion, which I had been toying with but I never thought that I would get in. I was amazed when I was accepted: they told me that they had been impressed with my enthusiasm.

"I arrived at college with all these girls who were looking to make their own wedding dresses and they knew how to sew whereas I had come from a boys school, sewing of course was not a high priority. My tutors realised that they had to do something, so I went on day release to a tailors, a couture house called La Chasse - very old-fashioned, very English".

Learning a good deal through what he calls, "soaking in the atmosphere and keeping your eyes and ears open", Stephen ultimately became a little bored with dressmaking. But, just next door was a millinery workroom where according to Stephen, the people always seemed to be interested in their work, very happy and content to be there. Securing a transfer under the guise that milliners themselves did a lot of hand-sewing, Stephen Jones became a hat-maker: "From that first day, I knew what I wanted to be when I 'grew up'. It was a lot like architecture actually. Basically I think that I am better at making a solid shape from a soft shape which is what a milliner is supposed to do too. In terms of the decoration element, when you do ceramics and you make a dent in a pot, it stays there and hats are quite similar in that there is a real connection between what you want it to look like and what it actually becomes as a finished product. Whereas if you tailor a jacket, there are a hundred different people involved: it is a very complicated procedure. When one makes the entire process one-self, it is more controlled, more exciting".

The sort of hats that Stephen Jones the milliner at twenty was making, are considerably different to todays product. Although he still makes 'special occasion' hats in preference to everyday headwear, he has substantially more creative leeway than in 1976, when his staunchly establishment clientele knew just what they wanted and what to look for in a hat. Today, Stephen is still servicing the millinery needs of the aristocracy but the advisory capacity has now reversed. Still, Stephen feels that he learnt a good deal from these women despite the innovation embargo.

"Initially, I was making for the aristocracy - very English, very low key, discreet hats; hats to open fetes, to launch ships and attend charity bazaars...In England it was only a very, very particular section of society and those people really needed hats as a mark of respectability which is not really the reason I make hats nor what I think hats are about necessarily. It was a very good training however, because these people have been wearing hats for donkey's years; they are very demanding and no one can fool them. By that I mean that if someone tries on a hat generally, they don't really know what a hat can do for them, nor do they understand the considerations of comfort probably through lack of experience. For instance, when one of the above ladies tries a hat on, before she even considers putting it on her head; she will feel how comfortable it is, she will wonder when she takes this hat off, will her hair still look O.K., if it is a straw summer hat, she will decide whether it will sit comfortably on her forehead - is it perfectly balanced? Will it be secure in the wind? So, she can carry on with her job, launching the ship or whatever, without worrying about it".

Hats have suffered much at the fickle hands of fashion fate. De rigeur for Audrey Hepburn and Doris Day was definitely not for Jane Fonda and later on, Meryl Streep. According to Stephen, much of the reaction against the covered head in the late sixties had to do with a changing society, different lifestyles and a different image that women developed for themselves. Not surprisingly, when Stephen began to make hats, there was a dearth of milliners, hats not being high on the fashion agenda at the time. In a very small space of fashion time, as Stephen's international success will attest, hats are again very big business indeed.

"The main reason for the change initially was that the sixties was when hairspray became commercially available, beehives got bigger and bigger, and how can you put a hat on top of this enormous hairstyle? Also, there was the reaction against that Doris Day image - the little gloves, trim frock and little white hat - when the sixties revolution began, throwing out your hats was rather like burning your bra.

"Lifestyles have also changed. Women do not have a lifestyle any more where they meet their girlfriends for lunch every day. Even successful women still work in some sort of capacity because the ideal, is to have an active lifestyle - not to lunch every day. Alternatively, even ten years ago, people would not have thought of wearing a hat for a special occasion but now it is something that they think about - it is fun to wear and it is an interesting accessory, not something that stems from social convention.

"I think now, that as the world becomes more technologically advanced, people want things that are more romantic, they want a sense of play, and leisure times are much more important. Romanticised notions are very appealing because they are the direct opposite of the high-tech world and there is a need to balance both. But, it is a modern romanticism, more sophisticated: people also realise today the preciousness of romanticism and natural elements whereas in previous generations, perhaps they were taken for granted. Previously technology was very precious, now it is not - it is almost a reversal of roles as people are now much more aware of how life is lived outside of work".

Upon leaving college, the young milliner left London for Paris "thinking that I was not particularly English in style", to work in the field of fashion assuming wrongly as it happens, that hats were an unlikely cog in the fashion machinery of the time. Finding Paris "difficult" but the South of France "fabulous", it would be another three years before his remarkable association with French designing elite would be established. Returning to London, Stephen established a small 'shop within a shop' in the basement of a fashionable Covent Garden store run by a friend for whom he had started making hats. As green in business as a felt beret, Stephen opened his first commercial venture, "without an accountant, a business bank account or a work crew - if I'd known that I had to show bank managers debit and credit flow sheets, I'd never have done it!" With one person fronting the shop and Stephen making the hats without a workroom, sales were overwhelming but the pressure was fierce. "I was making all the hats myself, working in the shop during the day, making all the hats at night and, probably going out too. I didn't count on the responsibilities. After six months, my house started falling down around me - I was working 20 hours a day, the shop was doing well, but I wasn't. So, I sold the goodwill to the people upstairs and I opened a small workroom with an assistant. That was really when I had what one might term as an 'organised business'". Notoriety was not far behind.

Having met a rather forward-thinking young French girl in London "who told me she was going to work for me", at her suggestion the pair decided to broach the designer market, not through any lavish promotions campaign, but via the telephone. Because they were touting millinery which was "unusual at the time", they gained entrees into the hallowed halls of the diminutive designing dervish, Azzedine Alaia who told them that he didn't really do hats and couldn't help them but would put them in touch with Thierry Mugler who did and would. "I went to see Mugler and I knew that it was the bigtime then", says Jones. "I had seen his shows when I was a student and I had thought to myself that one day I could maybe make things that would complement his shows. He simply asked me whether I would like to design for his next collection..." Almost too easy, but if meeting Mugler was a breeze, Jones' securing of commissions from Jean Paul Gaultier would bring tears to any aspiring, young milliner's eyes.

"With Gaultier, it worked in reverse. I had actually been in Boy George's first ever video and I was wearing a fez having just returned from Morocco", says Jones. "Unbeknownst to me, Gaultier had seen me in the video and had wanted to do some fez's, and have me modelling in his next collection. So, I went along to see him and offered to do some sketches for him. He was going out somewhere and told me to meet him again a couple of hours later, so I found a stationer's and went across the road to a cafe where I sat for two hours designing page after page of hats. I went back to see him and he was stunned - all these finished drawings after two hours - and he offered me a job.

"I don't work with either of those people any more: sooner or later it always comes to grief. It becomes very difficult when you are outside a company, particularly when you are in the fashion business. It becomes very tightknit, and there is a lot of professional jealousy because it is an intensely competitive situation. So, if something goes wrong, everyone will defend their own position and blame the outsider...

Stephen then added the likes of Chloe and Comme des Garcons to his list as well as several other well-known Parisian and English designers, but today has pared down this situation considerably, preferring to design for a select few and his own collection. "Many designers are certainly prima donnas, but it is a funny situation to be in really. It is rather like making a hat for a private customer - you have to have the patience of Job. I also have to find out what it is that they want from me, and me from them - I have to think about their ideas in the context of what they would do if they under-stood the technicalities of millinery. I work now with the designers that I really want to work with and not with those I don't", he says simply of his new philosophy.

"The method works differently with each designer. Sometimes I will be given a sketch and even though it may have a definite shape, I can interpret that shape in 500 different ways. Mugler would work like this, whereas Gaultier might say that he would like to have hats made out of postcards. I might suggest that he have fabrics printed in postcards, actual postcards or perhaps laminated postage stamps. With Claude Montana who is probably my main customer - I have been working with him longest - he will tell me very early on in the development of the collection what the mood is, perhaps understated, quite romantic, giving me very abstract ideas which is actually very positive because I am not being dictated to and I can come up with newer, fresher, more exciting hats.

Stephen is momentarily interrupted by a query from a customer who wants a hat rather speedier than Stephen is generally prepared to make them. But, he acquiesces, he knows her personality and what she likes and has told her to leave it to him. It is a responsibility that he does not take lightly because of the very peculiar psychology associated with his profession. Hats change people, both facially and psychologically.

"It can be quite bizarre really because when someone tries on a hat, they lose all their inhibitions and the barriers drop completely. Hats are very interesting actually because it is all to do with people's faces - how they imagine they look, how they want to look and what they think is beautiful. I like the idea that the hat should match the personality and not the dress: it should have relevance to the dress, but that should not be the all-consuming factor.

"Generally, a customer comes to me to buy a hat not simply because they know of the hats that I make, but perhaps what hats suits them or their outfit. There are of course, customers who are definite in what they want but quite often they will come in and place themselves entirely in my hands. That is quite a responsibility: it is great when someone is prepared to do that and I very much appreciate it, but it is also a big worry for me. If they go home and their husband jumps on them, terrific! it worked. But, if he is not interested, it hasn't worked. I had a customer a couple of years ago - a very grand lady in her eighties, and I made her a hat which was quite flirtatious, but not in an obvious way. It had a little sense of humour to it which she had too. She rang me up the next day and said, 'Oh Mr. Jones, I've just had the most remarkable experience. My husband pinched my bottom for the first time in forty years!" I think that was one of my greatest successes", he smiles.

The mystique associated with a hat has its translation in what Stephen Jones feels is an important element in millinery, a touch of seduction. Modern Romanticism does not mean overt sexuality, rather, it hints at allure. "I think that basically, you need to make a woman look more alluring somehow, but I don't want to make her sexy. Often with my hats, they don't look much off the head but once you put them on they develop personality, they jump out. I always tell the client to wear the hat before they go to the special occasion for which they bought it so that they can get used to it, they can function without really thinking about what is on their head at all. You see, most people do not wear hats every day so they have to learn to forget about them - they will then feel and look far happier. It is not the hat that makes them look great, it is themselves, so they have to learn to be comfortable with that. If I can create this awareness, then I am very pleased".

Although based in England, Stephen has always wanted to be "as international as possible", and in doing so has bridged a gap between what he sees as having been very stylised representations of hats from various countries. That his hats have a universal style, is a certainty, but they are in part a reflection of his own charm and creative self. Perhaps only Stephen Jones could have made a vertical purple chiffon headdress as popular in Paris as it is New York or Milan, combining the best that each culture has to offer.

"I suppose that I have always made what other people termed 'unusual' hats, but I thought that they were completely sensible", he says. "I first started working in Paris because I had thought that my hats were not particularly English which I feel are traditionally either very classic or more wacky. American hats are quite good because they have a bit more of an eye for glamour, however, they can sometimes be a bit too Hollywood. I like French hats because they have a real femininity, but they can sometimes be a bit too prissy, too sophisticated for their own good. Italian hats are in a funny way, a bit too simple - the more simple the clothes that one wears, the more beautiful one has to be. Most women when they get to literally seventeen years old, need a bit more help than that and Italian hats, in their complete simplicity and cleanliness of line are utterly unforgiving. If you wear something that is a little bit more romantic, asymmetric perhaps, a hat which has some textural interest to it, it is going to make your face look better as opposed to a very perfect hat which is going to make your face look worse".

It would seem from the stories of the feuding pop stars and the Mirabella/Salem episode that Stephen appears to make a hobby out of getting caught out but he has an ingeniousness that makes even his hardnosed image conscious clients from the entertainment industry fall about in astonished giggles as they marvel at his ability to extricate himself from the grip of potential disaster. "A woman came in once to order a hat and after she had left I had a complete blank about what she wanted me to make. For some strange reason I woke up in the middle of the night and thought, 'She wants a pink straw hat!' So I made her one and when she came in she said to me, 'Oh, Stephen, I didn't want this, I wanted a turban'. Somehow I told her this massive lie that to get a turban you had to construct a pink straw hat first and I just went on and on digging myself further into a grave. She listened to the whole story and then said, 'Well, Stephen, I am an actress, but you are undoubtedly a far better actor than I am'".

Perhaps this thespian milliner wouldn't attempt to convince Princess Diana that a pink straw hat was in fact the beginnings of a turban just waiting to break free, still, one suspects that there is very little genu-flecting and 'M'ladying' when Stephen Jones comes to tea with his sketch pad - "No, I don't have a Royal Warrant yet, I think they like you to be fifty or so before they hand you one of those..." They probably just have a good giggle.

"I do make hats for British Royalty", says Stephen modestly. "But, you know there is no real difference between making a hat for Mrs. X or Lady Whatever. It is essentially the same thing for me, except of course when I go to the Palace, I don't wear my shorts".