J. Smith Esquire

Justin Smith of J Smith Esquire is a mass of contradictions; both milliner and sometime hairdresser, he has a creative sense that’s equally happy to take inspiration from the dark underbelly of Dickensian London yet can still produce the chicest pillbox to delight a modern day Audrey Hepburn.
“There’s a kind of mutual antipathy between the two professions,” he admits, “but working with both hair and hats give you a real spacial awareness of the head and how something minute or gargantuan can work for the wearer.” Inevitably, it is the supersized pieces that have garnered the most publicity: at his 2007 graduation from the RCA, he created a burlesque corset in black lace as an orthopedic neck brace de luxe,decorated with detachable plumes straight from a Victorian funeral cortege. A year later, he resurrected icasso’s Guernica, complete with Minotaur inspired headpieces, fashioned by stretching denim over animal skull hat blocks. And yet, despite being dubbed the Edward Scissorhands of millinery, his smaller pieces are effortlessly urban, and (although he’d prefer not to admit it) rather romantic. Witness delicate headbands with a Marcel wave fringe straight from the annals of a Busby Berkley spectacular, or his men’s trilbys in wicker woven leather, both of which have become best selling staples for the designer.

This season J Smith Esquire looks seaward for inspiration,
combining beachcombing fodder such as rope, plywood and string to create pieces that are both simultaneously glamorous and dishevelled: think of a modern day Titanic,yet with well dressed survivors.