I really got to know him a bit better when I did Doctor Who. Because I was sort of struggling.
Oh, yes. We did. We would go to the shop and get dressed up and do Doctor Who stuff like that. Yeah.
He came and taught. We have 180 people in our building. He taught everybody how to do it. Is it with the screwdriver?
You can do it with a screwdriver, but I prefer to do it with a hand. Right.
It's very luxurious here.
We're very far away, so I'm going to have to... Yeah, exactly. Got to get on the couch.
I am delighted to welcome both of you to the stage today. We're talking about fashion. We're talking about influences. We're going to talk about your shared sort of cultural experiences and also kind of how you got to know each other basically. Because you're both in HSI magazine today. And we're all here to celebrate.
Thank you very much. Yeah.
We're here to celebrate your 80th birthday.
Not only your 80th birthday but more than 50 years in business as an independent British brand which is, I mean, they're rarer than hen's teeth these days.
So you are, I think the word is probably national treasure, although I was just discussing with Peter how the word national treasure can mean that people are a bit of an... really. But actually you're really nice.
Peter, you also need no further introduction. You are an actor of huge note, well known to everybody as Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It as introduced by Janine, and as Doctor Who, and shortly and just recently filming Murders in the Building.
So there's a lot going on in your life to say the least. But let's start at the beginning. When did you meet and where was it?
Well, we first met in the shop really, and I don't think he would really be aware of that because I came to London in the 80s, not very stylish, not with very much money. But with a wonderful girl who became my wife, Elaine Collins, who's sitting down there, dressed entirely in Paul Smith from head to foot.
And she said, 'You've got to come to this shop because we need to tart you up a bit and make you look a bit better.' So, I touched him up.
So, I was a bit... in those days if you went to an expensive or posh clothing shop in London, you could feel very much like you didn't belong there. You could feel as if the staff were maybe looking down their nose a little bit at you and that you shouldn't be... you couldn't afford their clothes or whatever. But the thing with Paul's shop was that immediately it was welcoming.
For some reason he has this ability to put together wonderful staff who actually open their arms and make you feel comfortable. And so I would go to the shop, Elaine would buy nice things for herself and persuade me to buy a nice pair of trousers or a nice jacket. And we would see this figure, sometimes phantom-like figure, tall and thin and elegant. And I was a little bit too shy. But they told me that was Paul Smith himself.
Paul Smith, you are a Saturday shop boy, right?
Yeah, I still... I mean I'm actually in rather a lot of trouble today to be honest because of my Saturday job.
Well, you haven't turned up. Yeah. And I missed the £4.50 that I would have got. And also, you're not sweeping up the floor. You know, there's like a bit of spilled milk you haven't dealt with. There's all sorts of complaints coming in. So, you know, well done. Thanks very much for being here. We know like the shop's been without you.
Look at them. I'm worn out.
But you are sort of master of the emporium, the shop. You are like... it's so... mythology.
Yeah. What you just heard is so lovely because that's what we've always tried to do is not have a shop where you feel like you need a new hairdo and a stiff drink to just walk in the door, you know. We just wanted a shop where you just actually enjoy shopping, you know, and if you buy something that's really lovely, you know, but it's never... honestly it's... we just like the experience of shopping. And of course with e-commerce now, it's so impersonal. So the shop, I think if you can find one that's the way you've just described it, is lovely.
So Pete, you were like hanging out a bit. You go in and out and then the two of you sort of actually developed a bit more of a relationship.
Well, he was very sweet. He was obviously... he's got his finger in so many pies and knows so much about what's going on. He obviously knew there were actors in and out and musicians and rock stars and whatever. And I think he'd keep an eye on what's... And he would drop me occasionally a little card to say congratulations on this job and that job and whatever.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You know, keep coming back.
Oh, did I put that on that one there?
But really, I really got to know him a bit better when I did Doctor Who. Because I was sort of struggling.
Oh, yes. We did. We would go to the shop and get dressed up and do Doctor Who stuff like that. Yeah.
He came and taught. We have 180 people in our building. He taught everybody how to do it. Is it with the screwdriver?
You can do it with a screwdriver, but I prefer to do it with a hand, right? And so, you know, all my people just sitting there and suddenly this crazy man came in and I'm just going to teach you how to do this... the hand.
Yes. Which actually wasn't created by me. I have to say it was... I think Jon Pertwee was the Doctor Who who did that originally. But I was, as they always do in Doctor Who, they're very worried about the costume and I was very worried about the costume. And you know they basically take you to a warehouse full of fancy dress and make you put on every single thing that's hanging there and take photographs of you and try to find something that works. And I never really found anything that really made me feel very much like Doctor Who.
So I said to Paul, 'Can I come and see you and talk to you about this and see if you might be able to help me?' And he did. We went into his... he has this fabulous workspace which is like full of all of these trinkets from all over the world from things that people send you.
All I kept thinking was who dusts this? Yeah. Exactly. And you should tell the folks some of the stories of those bits and pieces. But he said, 'Let's have a look.' We went downstairs and he had some garments around, some cool young designers, some people around and we just gradually began to put this thing together which was a sort of a kind of... I wanted something that was kind of a bit like a frock coat.
Yeah, it was a bit like a frock coat, but I also wanted to have a little bit of an edge like a kind of a skinheady kind of thing. So, it was a kind of Crombie and black trousers and a spot.
And I've got some pictures from the studio actually and it was great. And you taught everybody how to...
I taught everybody that. Yeah. And that was it. So that was the look that I went back.
And now you have just one member of staff that takes care of you every time. Nuria.
Nuria looks after us every time we come into the shop.
She's so lovely, you know, in today's world that... it's all quite unusual as well. I'd like to say I don't think I've got a Muriel.
Oh, I don't think she takes... Yeah. But it's nice that you know the staff have absolutely certain people.
Well, also it's great because if it's my wife's birthday or something, I can say to Nuria, 'Have you got anything in that you think might suit her?' And she often does. Always does.
But so in terms of like creating character, building a personality, like what was it actually about the coat and what was the kind of thought things that you drew on to sort of find the character through this outfit and how much agency did you have in the creation of it?
Um, not much. Right. Because if you do something like Doctor Who, it's actually a big brand.
Although you people may think of it as being their thing that they watched when they grew up, it actually became a very, very successful international brand. So that suddenly has a lot of people worrying about it and worrying about it.
So you take your coat into the wardrobe designer and say, 'Look, I've found it. I've cracked it.' And they say, 'Not so fast.'
Um, you know, they accepted it because I'd been around the block and also I just sort of insisted really that that's the way we should go. And that's what we did. But I don't know, it's just something that makes you feel... it's crazy. It's just something that makes you feel like Doctor Who. You know, if you're dressing Sherlock Holmes, you've got to have something that, you know, a deerstalker or something that makes you feel like Sherlock Holmes.
Paul, you have got so many interests. I think what's fascinating about you is that through this through-line of your career it starts off as a kind of cyclist, wants to be a professional cyclist, gets injured, kind of has to turn to something else and then you've got so many other interests in life. How did you get to clothing? What was the journey?
I suppose just a love of life and enthusiasm and curiosity and that's what I've always tried to see things in a very optimistic way and so actually the interesting thing when Pauline and I started the little business in June 1970, we just thought it'd be a nice way to earn a living.
But like what was it actually that made you think right we're going to take a lease out on this shop. We're going to start selling like clothes.
Yeah. But I think the point, you know, I've just done a book and the book's very gentle. It's very about showing people it doesn't really have to be like that. It could be you make some nice clothes and then you hope people like them and then you have a little shop and then you sell some to a couple of shops in London. And so it was very gentle. It was never like that. And people often say to me, 'Oh, when did you think you've really turned the corner?' And I said, 'Never really.' You know, it's just... it was just...
That's also a virtue presumably though of owning your own brand. Like you've always got that.
I think that's probably why there's longevity there because we've never really desired, you know, massive growth. You know, we've always wanted to just have nice customers that enjoyed what we do. And so it's been very gentle and that's really nice. But it's curiosity and observation and being very optimistic about stuff because you know it's a pretty difficult world we live in now. So you just keep strong.
Yeah. But I know I mean I'm just always interested in what is the moment or what is the period in your life in which you discover that you want to make clothes.
Oh well that was after having the bike accident and then eventually meeting Pauline. I became a shop assistant that happened to sell clothes.
Yeah. Right. I'm still a shop assistant. Yeah.
Which is great. And explain about Pauline.
Well, Pauline... well, like with your wife and my wife, they've been such an important part of our lives, you know. So, I had a bike crash. Couldn't ride a bike anymore. So, I helped a person open a clothes shop. And then that was very interesting. And then I met Pauline because she came into the shop. She was teaching a couple of days a week in Nottingham. But she'd studied at the Royal College of Art doing couture clothes, making clothes properly, right?
And so, you know, we ended up... she came to live with me in Nottingham. But then I learned about pattern cutting and... important. I just did that to you.
Yeah. Because I mean this behind that lapel when you put your hand down it's delightful because it's got... Do you want to have a go?
Yeah. 20 quid a time. 20 quid a time.
It's called pad stitching. And Pauline taught me about that because pad stitching... and I won't be boring too long, but pad stitching is when you stitch it and you pull the thread a bit tighter every time and that creates the roll. And so Pauline taught me things like that which a lot of the other designers that were around at the time were far more talented and more creative than us but sadly a lot of the clothes were really badly made and so they couldn't really sell them to other shops and you know we sold to Barneys when they were a wonderful department store in New York and a nice shop in Paris and slowly we built it from there but it was to do with the quality, you know.
So was it the construction of the clothing that excited you then? Was it the making, the tailoring?
It was mostly tailoring, right, to start with.
And that was because of her background. And of course, I was very privileged to go to the couture shows in Paris when there was eight people in the audience, you know, I saw Chanel with Chanel sitting there and Saint Laurent and I think I told you Pauline had the last couture smoking suit that Saint Laurent ever made, you know.
Yeah. So you know so we were privileged to go to these... you know a couture show now will have as you know more than anybody is 600,000 people now but in those days there were two shows, two weeks of shows in an afternoon with about eight girls, 16 outfits, no music and about eight people in the audience every day. Eight people, 10 people, 12 people.
Did you think... did the world like we know now like fashion as a kind of huge corporate industry. We see billboards all over the street. We've seen the rise of the conglomerates like these big, big, big companies. What was people's understanding of fashion when you were at that point? You know, what did it mean to people? Was it about what people were wearing on the street? I mean, what did fashion mean to you when you were at art college?
Well, when I was at art college, I went to art college in 1975. And we thought fashion was basically being a hippie wearing a cheesecloth shirt.
You know, an army surplus coat and having long hair. And then the Sex Pistols came in 1976 and suddenly everybody went and they cut all their hair off and put bin bags on and put safety pins through your hair and everything changed. Which was great because suddenly thought well there is a way to look cool which has not been invented yet. So, we began to look around then for ways of looking cool, which might be 501 jeans or a black coat or whatever. And it would be individual garments.
Yeah. Because you didn't have any money.
It was the early 80s really where it started to move from everything that Peter has just described to clothes that were designed by designers and there was what they call ready-to-wear.
Yeah. Exactly. The sort of idea of the catwalk and collections. I mean what you're talking about Peter was very much like a cultural phenomenon which is born of like an album cover or a film or some other kind of like art reference.
Yeah. Yeah. But it's quite... I mean I'm sort of interested in how... I mean what Paul really is to me is an artist.
So I'm always interested in that process of how does a child become an artist and how does a child from a background which necessarily doesn't have a history in that area. How does that happen? What are the things? What did your parents do to give you this vision or to allow this vision to blossom?
You know, in my case, it was my dad with his photography.
It was your dad. And so, was photography when you felt your eye was starting to be developed?
Yeah. Yeah. Age 12. Yeah. Age 12, right? Okay. Age 12. So, you're on your bike and you start taking pictures.
Yeah. There were two things. I can't remember being younger than 11 really.
Yeah. 11 or 12. And one was getting a bike and then going out. Yeah. And then looking around and going, 'Yeah, there's no parents.' That's quite cool. Quite cool. And then starting to race and the thing about camaraderie, which has helped massively with managing, you know, I've got well over a thousand staff. So, you know, managing people is... when you've got a team of cyclists, then you help the sprinter on the flat day and you help the climber on the hilly day. So, that was very interesting. But then the camera was the big thing because the camera had what they call an eye-level viewfinder which is like that there. And so that made you look and see.
So, you know, and it was film. You got eight pictures with your pocket money.
Yeah. And you couldn't get it wrong. So, you really had to think how you were going to take the picture.
And what were you taking pictures of?
A gate. Yes. Yes. My first picture was a gate that was made out of a cartwheel and we live at number 39 Abbey Road and that was at 37 road. Yes.
But you're starting then to compose. You're not just...
And also getting it in the frame.
Yeah. Because you know when it's only that big you know you could have half a cartwheel you know but luckily I got a whole one.
So your eye is developing as you are composing in the frame. Are you shooting in color or black and white?
So where does this incredible color thing come from? The way that you put colors together is extraordinary. Where does that come from?
Yeah. I mean that came probably... probably not definitely through me realizing that as a designer I was okay but not great. I did basically very simple things and so having what I call the twist, classic with a twist, where you'd find a different color buttonhole or an unusual lining or eventually color was the reason why the 65 countries we sell to would buy from me because...
Oh he's the guy that does quite interesting color even though the main thing you sell is black and white and navy blue but you know the color helps. You know it's normally from a sock or a cuff or a wristband, you know.
Yeah but it's more than that. It's more than a splash. It's a relationship. There are relationships between all those... you know the whole thing about color theory and mixing colors and how colors can play tricks on you, you know, because if you put a green and blue together, they're quite feisty together.
Whereas if you put use the same green and put it with beige.
Yeah. So you can play tricks with color. You can make a color feel like a Warhol or you can make a piece of color feel like an etching, you know.
So you're just learning all this as you go by.
Okay. Alive, all live as well, you know, just out your head.
And who did you think was great? You said you thought you wouldn't be great as a designer. So, who did you think was great?
Well, at the time, and sadly, none of the people that were great are in business anymore or in many cases alive anymore, I'm afraid. You know, there were just people that had really great... came out of good art schools, mostly the Royal College of Art then, did great things, had a business for three years, four years, five years, and then sadly closed down.
What went wrong, do you think, for a lot of them?
Well, that's... without... I'm not here to promote my Newgen foundation, but my foundation is very much about teaching people all the things that the young designers come... all the things I didn't know at 21 like you know I thought VAT was vodka tonic you know for instance. And you know what is cash flow, what is intellectual property, how do you do a set of accounts. And you know I was 21 when I started my business, you know, and I had a left school at 15. So you know all the things you're like oh how do you do that, how do you do that? So what the foundation tries to do, I mean especially in this world that we live in now, is intellectual property, you know like doing designs that somebody could nick and then make tons of money out of it.
When did you trademark your stripes?
The stripes. Um '92. '92. Yeah. Yeah.
Wise move. But you retired the stripes at one point because you were a bit over them.
Yeah. Yeah, I did. Yeah. And it cost me five million quid.
Yeah. Yeah. I got told off a lot. Yeah. I was seriously told off. That was a very silly thing to do.
Paul, when did you first open that shop in Covent Garden?
