Flashback

Milliner Stephen Jones remembers dressing his bemused parents in his creations, 1995

THIS PHOTO WAS TAKEN about a week before I opened my shop in Great Queen Street, Covent Garden, in 1995 – the first I had by myself. I really felt as though I’d arrived. It was unbelievably exciting, but also completely terrifying.

The two people sat in front of me are my parents, wearing two of my hats. Peggy and Gordon were archetypal Telegraph readers – they lived in Buckinghamshire and were more ‘home counties’ than you could imagine. They were very bemused by the shoot. They were 75, but my mother had firm ideas about what she wanted to wear. My father just hoped he wouldn’t have the mickey taken out of him at the golf club. The hairdresser told my mother she had great legs, so of course she was putty in his hands.

The first hat I ever made was for my mother – she paid me £15 for it, to help with the cash flow (I was a student at the time). That was quite a lot of money in the late ’70s. Not long after, Diana, Princess of Wales became my client. I was introduced to her by Jasper Conran and Anna Harvey [then an editor at Vogue and the princess’s personal stylist]. Diana was sweet and charming. I had to pinch myself to think that I was standing in a room with her. If she noticed that I was a bit star-struck she’d bring me back down to earth by saying, ‘Come on Stephen, let’s get on with it.’

Diana had ideas for her hats, but Anna helped her as well. I made her a succession of berets that were quite soft. I liked putting her in discreet things. She didn’t need to look extravagant. She had to be smartly dressed and pretty, looking like the future queen, but in a way that people could relate to her.

Back then, I was out almost every night, often at Blitz [the nightclub credited with launching the New Romantic scene]. That club was a huge influence on my designs, because I was making hats for my friends, rather than for a runway. It’s why they were so small, because you had to be able to dance in them.

The hat my mother is wearing in the picture was for Ascot because, for her, a hat was something to wear to church or to the races. She used to drag me to Ascot kicking and screaming when I was a teenager, making me wear a morning suit. But I quite enjoyed it, if I’m honest.

For a long time, I put my Englishness to one side, but working with John Galliano in the ’90s encouraged me to embrace that idiosyncrasy and eccentricity. One of the craziest hats I made had dry ice in it, which burns very badly in its liquid state. My heart was in my mouth as I watched [the model] Jade Parfitt balance it on her head. I also once made a hat for a horse, an enormous concoction inspired by My Fair Lady. In fittings the horse was extremely well behaved, but as soon as the cameras started flashing, he went nuts and tried to eat the hat.

Stephen Jones Hats is at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, until 9 June (brightonmuseums.org.uk)

My father hoped he wouldn’t have the mickey taken out of him at the golf club

Stephen Jones with his parents Peggy and Gordon