Your Space Or Mine: Adam Jones
Adam Jones’ spiritual home is the traditional boozer. Finding the decor of these British institutions endlessly inspiring, he told us, “When you’ve got an eye for fashion, you can’t help but notice the wood against the green pool table on top of those red, brown, orange sun-bleached carpets. It’s a lot of colour and texture for the mind. You could just sit down there and make the entire collection out of that room.” Jones is one of the most recent emerging designers to feature in our ongoing Your Space Or Mine project. With images shot by photographer Luke Million, the series of billboards featured Jones' newest sartorial creations alongside classic archive pieces, photographed on location in a South London former-Job Centre-turned-bar.
The 30-year-old fashion designer with an eye for kitsch made a name for himself by repurposing original beer towels and turning them into a range of sweater vests (which have recently been spotted on the likes of Dua Lipa, Nothing But Thieves, and Sports Team). He even used a pub – where he had a bar job at the time – as a venue to show his first collection during London Fashion Week in 2015.
Hailing from a tiny village in north Wales called Froncysyllte, Jones' aesthetic was informed by his hometown which, by his own admission, remains “very much stuck in the 70s and 80s”. The sweater vests, scarves, and bags he designs are – literally – impregnated with references from the world of the working-class pubs in his community. Incorporating original beer towels emblazoned with the logos of ales and lagers, Jones reappropriates the artefacts and ephemera of the classic old man pub – disappearing, endangered spaces imperiled by the threat of charmless refurbishments and encroaching gentrification.
When asked how he felt about seeing his work on streets across the country, Jones said, "I mean, I think I will cry and I will be sick. Like, I won’t even be able to look at it, I’ll be in shock. I’m almost nervous, it’s just ridiculous. It’s beyond the dream come true. I can’t wait."
