This vest made of Deptford’s Dog & Bell beer towels has become new South London status symbol

Coperni took over Disneyland Paris, but we are more excited about a collab a little closer to home.

Menswear designer Adam Jones, best known for making jumpers from beer towels, yesterday celebrated a new capsule collection with his local, Deptford’s Dog & Bell. “It’s where I’ve been drinking since I moved south of the river five years ago. Trust me, it’s worth it!” he says.

Adam Jones’ new one-off design in collaboration with Deptford’s Dog & Bell (Adam Jones)

As expected, they went the whole hog: there were Dog & Bell x Adam Jones brandished ashtrays, urinals, bright red wheelie bins — even the pub pooches had special towel jumpers made for them. Everyone in the smoking area was wearing their new black and red Deptford Dog & Bell towel pull overs. Jones’ order? “At the Dog & Bell, it’s always an Asahi for me,” he says.

Jones, who is Welsh and South London based, describes his label as “an idiosyncratically British brand full of nostalgia for our country’s past, celebrating the humour in the history of this land — embracing our tag of Broken Britain.” His cult following has been steadily climbing since 2018 when he made the first of the now synonymous Adam Jones beer vests.

Inside Thursday night’s celebration bash at the boozer (Adam Jones)

“It was around the time of logo mania and I felt I needed to offer some form of logo on the clothes but I found generating my own a bit naff,” he says. “The pub next to my studio which was then in Wales was closing down and I found a load of towels in the skip and it just made sense to use them.”

“The beer towel vests are now the most popular item. There seems to be the customers that recognise they are from the pub and buy into the nostalgia, and those that are too young to remember the towels in pubs but like the aesthetic.”

Adam Jones has built up his ready-to-wear offering in recent years (Adam Jones)

Over the past six years he has developed a ready-to-wear offering, hosting off-schedule runway shows and securing a series of other collaborations. The biggest came earlier this year with Colours Of Arley, and “paid homage to the hard working men who keep the high street alive, wearing their stripes to work, the butchers, fishmongers and fruit stall holders.”

“I’m now working on the next two collections simultaneously,” he continues. “I have so many ideas at the moment which is exciting, so I'm trying to split them into two collections that make sense. Also being alone in the studio every day doing everything myself means I'm craving a collaboration or two.”

Which pub wants the Jones treatment next?