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.

Celebrating his roots is central to Jones’s practice as a designer. He’s excited by what he perceives to be an emerging group of creatives making work across a range of mediums that honours their northern or non-London heritage. “It feels like a movement of being proud of being northern down south”, he says. “Artists like Corbin Shaw, Mitch Vowles, Sam Nowells, and Celeste McEvoy. They’re not a collective, they’re just all mates and they’re all making art, and they all seem to be getting places.”

Before building his own brand, Jones caught the eye of the celebrated punk iconoclast, Judy Blame, who championed the Welsh designer’s extraordinary talent and idiosyncratic vision. While invoking something of Blame’s punk sensibility, the lineage of Jones’ designs lay in a more diverse, rich range of subcultures and references. From skinhead to Swinging London, from vintage tea towels to the decor of 1970s jobcentres, Jones calls upon a seemingly disparate constellation of reference points conjoined by an overarching sense of nostalgia for a more stylish, experimental past. Discussing the lure of previous decades, he tells us, “I was looking back to 1969 when everything was changing and it seemed like people were either inside watching colour television or they were at a punk gig. Or they were walking their pet leopard down the King’s Road, you know?”

He was first introduced to the transformative possibilities of fashion by his eccentric grandma – an artist with a soaring sense of glamour that transcended the unpretentious, working-class community that bound her. Thinking nothing of a trip to Tesco wearing a mink stole, she enlarged her grandson’s horizons and exposed him to the possibilities and theatricality of fashion. “She was quite excessive,” he recalls. “Living in a humble, drab, unshowy place but dressing like she was swanning around London.” Enthralled with the glamour and drama of her outfits – some of which dated back to the 20s, 30s, and 40s – his grandma’s wardrobe was an imaginative porthole to another era.

While there may be an aspect of sustainability to his work, the impetus behind his designs remains anchored in nostalgia. Jones admits that his inspired use of upcycled beer towels is due to his interest in the cultural and historical associations of these fabrics rather than any ecological imperative. “My work has been sustainable since my graduate collection, but not on purpose. It just so happens to be sustainable because the materials I’m interested in, they just happened to be sustainable,” he explains. “Which is great… But I just think if you’re that interested in saving the world, you wouldn’t become a designer.”

Below, we talk to the acclaimed young designer about his romance with the Great British boozer, his nostalgia for the lost subcultures of the past, and his vision for the latest iteration of Your Space Or Mine hitting the streets.

Could you talk us through your particular aesthetic and where it comes from?

Adam Jones: I was from the Welsh countryside where it’s very green. When I came to London it was like this brash city with rubbish everywhere and pissed people on the streets and foxes rummaging through bins and, like, just things I wasn’t used to seeing. As I spent a lot of time here, I began thinking more about my hometown and then wanting to spend more time in parks and old men’s pubs and things that remind me of home. I think I kind of go around London looking for things that remind me of home.

It’s that nostalgia for Wales, which is very much stuck in the 70s and 80s. Like, the pubs, the working mens’ clubs, the people still wearing hand-me-downs and shopping in the markets. I was always just kind of finding similarities between London and home. And that’s how I ended up becoming saturated in nostalgia for Britain’s past and its working-class culture. You know, old ladies with the vintage tea towels in their kitchens and their husbands down the pub. It’s very British, very nostalgic, very 70s, almost tacky.

Can you tell me about the project you’ve done for Your Space Or Mine?

Adam Jones: Yeah, I mean, they approached me and offered me these billboards, which is insane. So I was like, Yes! Thank you very much! So it’ll be up during London Fashion Week, which is amazing.

I got my photographer friend, Luke Million who’s from Newcastle, and we went to this bar in Deptford where I live in South London. It’s an old Job Center still got loads of the original decor – it’s very orange and brown and it kind of looks like a Job Center. I just got these two young guys to come in and we just did a shoot there. So, it’s a brand new shoot with archive pieces which are the classics and then stuff from my upcoming collection.

Can you tell me about the new collection?

Adam Jones: Yeah, I’ve just released a little capsule with one of my stores called Apoc. So that was an exclusive just for them. I was trying to feminise my work a bit more because it’s always been a bit skinhead and punk with British flags and beer towels. And so I’ve brought in flowers and images of monkeys having a tea party. It’s a bit more chintzy and kitsch.

I guess I was just feeling flowers and wildlife and spending a lot of time watching documentaries about London in the 1960s, so I think it’s nostalgia for London being fun and exciting again with no rules. I was looking back to 1969 when everything was changing and it seemed like people were either inside watching colour television or they were at a punk gig. Or they were walking their pet leopard down the King’s Road, you know?

I always get the sense of there being more distinct subcultures in those decades…

Adam Jones: Yeah. I mean, I wish there were subcultures again, but I don’t feel like there is anymore.

Can you tell me about the journey you took to eventually create your brand?

Adam Jones: I studied at Manchester School of Art and graduated in 2013. I couldn’t get a job in the industry as I’m very old-school, not very tech-orientated, and didn’t want to sit in front of a computer all day anyway – that wasn’t why I studied fashion. I wanted to be a designer, not design for other people.

I moved home to Wales and got a small studio. I went there every night for a year after my day job in a sewing factory making fancy dress costumes. It took a year to produce a collection. Then I moved to London to showcase it, got a job in a pub – the Jamaica Wine House in Bank – and they let me use the pub as my show venue.

Judy Blame noticed me on Instagram. He put in an order and he got me a job with the designer Christopher Shannon, which I enjoyed but I was still spending my evenings making my next collection. I showed it on schedule during London Fashion in January 2018 and I was picked up by the stockists 50m that year, where I’d also begun working.

I’ve continued making collections since, but it wasn’t till the pandemic hit and I was put on furlough that I was able to spend all my time building my brand and eventually doing it full time.

Your grandma was a big influence on you when you were growing up. What was it about her sense of style that captured your imagination?

Adam Jones: I spent a lot of time with her. She used to pick me up from school when my parents were working so I’d be at her house every day after school with my other six cousins. They’d be running around doing whatever, but I was the oldest one so me and her would sit and just draw. She’d get all her old clothes out and just show me them and enjoy telling me the history of them like, ‘This came from my grandmother in the 1920s.’ And, I don’t know, I just became obsessed with clothes.

She would make all or most of her own clothes, or wear hand-me-downs from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. And, like most grandmas back in the day, she just was always dressed to the nines whatever occasion. I used to go to chapel with her every Sunday and she would just be wearing mink stoles. She was out there, for Wales especially. She’d spent time in London and used to shop in Selfridges and then moved back to Wales with all these clothes and would just wear them to go to Tesco. Yeah, she was quite excessive – living in a humble, drab, unshowy place but she’d still dress like she was swanning around London. She’s an artist, a painter. She’s the only one that I could talk to about creative stuff.

You already mentioned the lure of the old man’s pub. What aspects of pub culture appeal to you? And do you think it’s a kind of disappearing world?

Adam Jones: I was like a very good boy in Wales. I was the firstborn and I was quite sheltered. You know when you go to parties and all your friends are drinking, I’d be like, ‘Oh no, not allowed.’ I never drank till I was 18. So, as soon as I could, I was very much out there. I would drink alone in my local pub when I was 18. I just really embraced it and loved it because now I was actually allowed to go. And, yeah, in Wales the pubs are very much stuck in a time period of the 70s and 80s, they haven’t changed, they haven’t had a refurb. The locals like it like that and it just still looks like that. And so that’s what I knew.

So, moving to London, I kind of sought that out and started looking for those places that I was used to… It’s just the colours, it’s you know. 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, sunbleached carpets. It’s a lot of colour and texture for the mind. You’ve got, you know, all the kind of paraphernalia on the walls and it’s just like, so much to take from it, for me. You could just sit down there and make the entire collection out of that room.

In Wales, people wouldn’t get dressed up to go to the pub. You’d get like someone in the high vis next to a builder covered in paint. And then there’s that crazy lady from next door in a leopard print coat in a dressing gown. There’s just so many locks in a small place and everyone’s getting on with each other.

Which are your favourite pubs you’ve discovered in London?

Adam Jones: I love the Edgar Wallace near Temple, that’s one of my favourites. The Dog and Bell in Deptford is great. And there’s Skehans in Nunhead.

Who would you say are your fashion icons? Apart from your nan, obviously.

Adam Jones: I would say my muse or biggest inspiration is Sarah Lucas. She’s a YBA artist from the 1990s and her work inspires me but also the way she looks. She’s always in like fur coats and bleached denim and camo and she’s actually made suits out of beer towels before. I would love for that to wear my stuff, I’m obsessed.

And then I guess fashion designer-wise. It was cliche when you were studying to say McQueen, Galliano, and Westwood so you tried your hardest not to say those three. But when you get older you think actually there’s a reason, we all said those three because they are the best.

Are there any particular significant items of clothing you can remember owning or really lusting after when you were growing up?

Adam Jones: Gosh. I mean, I went through all the phases. You know, I was chav, emo, skater… I think those kids don’t really have those now. It’s even changed since then, since the year 2000.  We were all wearing tracks and the next month, we had barbed wire necklaces around our necks and baggy jeans. And then the next month, we were wearing those octopus trousers net vests. It’s weird, that just doesn’t seem to happen now.

I think kids are too aware of fashion now because it’s online and everywhere. I think my style icons growing up were people like that girl at the bus stop or that boy on the back of the bus on the way to school who wore his uniform a certain way. But that doesn’t seem to happen now. Now it’s just like Dua Lipa.

Who would you most like to see wearing your clothes?

Adam Jones: Sarah Lucas! And Blondey McCoy. Do you know him? He’s an artist and a model and a skateboarder. I’m obsessed with him. I think he’s the only person that I would gift anything to.

What excites you culturally right now?

Adam Jones: I feel like there’s this movement of young artists in London at the moment who are really embracing their heritage. And it’s all about being northern. It feels like a movement of being proud of being northern down south. Artists like Corbin Shaw, Mitch Vowles, Sam Nowells, and Celeste McEvoy.

They’re not a collective, they’re just all mates and they’re all making art, and they all seem to be getting places. It feels like this movement of lad culture, but not aggressive. It’s like a soft lad culture. Embracing Britain but being able to use the England flag in a soft, friendly way, rather than it being a negative, aggressive thing. I think that’s what I’m enjoying.

There’s obviously an aspect of sustainability to your work, with the upcycling of the beer mats. Can you tell me about this side of your practice?

Adam Jones: My work has been sustainable since my graduate collection, but not on purpose. It just so happens to be sustainable because the materials I’m interested in, they just happened to be sustainable, which is great. So now I’m learning about how to become more sustainable and I think about materials more, but definitely wasn’t born out of trying to be sustainable.

I just think if you’re that interested in saving the world, you wouldn’t become a designer. At the end of the day, we make clothes because we enjoy designing and making, otherwise we just wouldn’t do it because it’s just counterproductive. So, yeah, it’s predominantly sustainable because of the materials I am attracted to.

How do you think it will feel to see your work up on huge billboards in the street?

Adam Jones: 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.

Do you have a map of the locations they will be?

Adam Jones: Yeah, I’ve got a map. I’m gonna do a pub crawl around all the venues, mostly East London. Some in Cardiff and Bristol as well, I think. I might camp out for a week beside one of them. There’s actually one outside my flat that I can see from my balcony.

I just can’t wait to see an old lady having a cigarette in front of it, or a dog having a shit, or a crazy homeless guy having a beer in front of it. I just want to shoot those moments. I’m also excited for somebody to graffiti on them and for them to start peeling off.

Yes, because then it’s kind of been absorbed into the fabric of the city. Thinking ahead, what plans do you have for future projects?

Adam Jones: I just released this collection today. That was just like a small collection of 12 looks. In October, there’ll be another show, like a proper big show but I’m not sure when – I’m just not putting that pressure on myself anymore. And I’d like to make some homeware, some objects… ashtrays little sculptures, candleholders, cushions. Unique, one-off, weird things. I’d like to do everything!