It's everybody else that's noticed I'm 80. You know, if nobody had told me, it wouldn't have made any difference. They say, 'Oh, Paul's job.' Yes. Head of happiness. That's my job. What a great job. I do clothes as well. Yeah. [laughter]
I was living at home with my mom and dad, and suddenly I had a lady from London with two children, two dogs and two cats. So it was quite a move forward.
Yeah. [laughter] Hello and welcome to How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. This is the podcast that believes you can dress for success, but only if you've understood your failures first. Before we get into this conversation, please do remember to like, follow, and subscribe so that you never miss a single episode.
Sir Paul Smith is one of Britain's most iconic fashion designers, renowned for his sharp tailoring and his sartorial flair. His winks of mischief, brightly colored suit linings, and affinity for stripes are part of what give his classic clothes a uniquely modern perspective. Although probably too modest to claim the label, he's also a revolutionary. In the 1990s, he was one of the first designers to print photographs on fabric, and he's also credited with reinventing the humble boxer short. The youngest of three children, Sir Paul's father was a draper. It was his dad who took his youngest son to work as an errand boy in a Nottingham clothing warehouse after the young Paul left school at 15 with no formal qualifications.
Initially, Sir Paul wanted to be a cyclist, but a serious road accident at the age of 17 put paid to those ambitions. He began taking evening classes in tailoring and was later spotted by the Savile Row tailor Harold Tillman, who offered him a job. In 1970, he and his wife Pauline opened their first shop in his hometown of Nottingham. His first full menswear collection was shown in Paris six years later. By the year 2000, he had established a globally successful business and was awarded a knighthood. His devoted clients include Gary Oldman, Bill Nighy, and Matty Healy, who wore a Paul Smith suit to his recent wedding. And as if that weren't enough, Sir Paul has even had a tram named after him. His new memoir, Threads: My Life in Style, paints a picture of a man who is a lifelong observer and who built a world by paying attention. As Sir Paul puts it, 'I always say that you can find inspiration in everything. And if you can't, look again.' Sir Paul Smith, welcome to How to Fail.
That was a very, very nice introduction. Very posh.
Well, good. And he said it's very — he said very — what was it, smart or elegant? Sartorial. And I'm in a purposely washed suit today. Wonderful. So, more relaxed today.
You look — you always look wonderful. And I must say I am wearing one of my...
I know, you look great. Yeah. [laughter] I think I look relaxed, but...
No, you look great. And I want to give you a personal thank you because Paul Smith suits have been a mainstay of my wardrobe ever since I launched this podcast. And it's partly because when I first did a live How to Fail show, your amazing team — and they are amazing. You work with great people and that comes from the top — reached out and said we'd like to dress you, and I discovered the joy of great tailoring.
Yes. I mean, and that's the background of Portsmouth really, tailoring mostly because of what you described — night school — and Pauline, of course, who was my teacher at home, who studied couture fashion at the Royal College of Art. So I had two good aspects of training really.
I also just want to thank you for designing for women because that was something that came along a bit later, wasn't it? You realized that 15% of your client base was female.
That's right. Yes. And it was Grace Coddington, the well-known lady from British Vogue and American Vogue, a stylist, who just kept putting people in Paul Smith men's clothes. And then one day she was saying, 'Yeah, we do need occasionally a skirt, or we do need occasionally a coat that sort of fits a bit more correctly.' And that was how I started really. But I love that androgynous sort of masculine look, and so Paul Smith women's is essentially tailoring really.
When you're fitting someone for a suit, do you feel that you get to know them?
It's important to get to know them because it's important to know — especially in today's world, since COVID, when so many people are not wearing tailoring, you know, they sort of spent time at home in hoodies and things. So getting them back into more structured clothes. But that's why the suit I'm wearing, for instance, has no structure. It's washed and it was purposely created for all those men, ladies that over the years think, 'Oh, well, a suit is too rigid.' And so we're saying, 'Yes, but you can make a suit which is more relaxed as well.'
Do you get to know their insecurities as well?
Um, I mean, [clears throat] yes. [laughter] We do, of course. We have ready-to-wear, that means off the peg, and we do made-to-measure, which is where you can make things fairly accurate for most bodies. And then we do a full bespoke, which is where you get to know people's characters. And that's obviously quite expensive these days because it's all handmade. There's three fittings, and that's where you start to learn why. When are you thinking of using this? Is it for business? Do you tend to want to look very elegant and smart, or are you more of a relaxed person? Are you likely to wear it with a crisp white shirt and a tie, or a denim shirt? So...
Is it difficult to make a suit for someone you don't like?
Uh, I'm actually a very strange person because I like people. So, you know, you don't like their politics or their behavior or their bad manners, but essentially they're a human being. So...
Try to behave. I've been concentrating on making suits and tailoring. But of course, Paul Smith is a globally successful business. Been going for 56 years, still independent, absolutely phenomenal achievement. And I really loved that quote that you gave about paying attention to find inspiration. And one of the things that I know many people will associate with Paul Smith is that bright pink store in Los Angeles. Tell us the story of how that came about.
I mean, the joy of independence is the fact that you can think, 'Maybe I'll build a pink shoe box on Melrose Avenue,' and the only person you ask is the guy when you're shaving in the morning and you see yourself in the mirror. Melrose Avenue is about 20 miles long. Los Angeles is flat and wide, about 40 miles across. Almost everybody drives. So I thought that if I'm putting a shop in this city, then it's got to be a sore thumb. It's got to be a big statement. So I've always been in love with a Mexican architect called Luis Barragán, who is famous for his color. So Pauline and I, my wife and I, went to Mexico City to look at his home that he built, some chapel, some a ranch. They were always in bright colors. And so that's how it came about. And now it's the most Instagrammed wall in California and probably in America. It's ridiculous how many — I think about 400 people a day.
Yeah. I mean, that was all by chance.
Yeah. And stripes, that's another thing which people associate with you. Are you sick of them?
Um, no. The stripes became my logo without, you know, by default really. Um, because in the '90s I just created a stripe that had lots of colors in it, thinking it was just for one season. It was a summer season. [snorts] And then in the winter I didn't include it in the collection. And then several of the retailers that buy from us were saying, 'Um, where's the stripe? Where's the stripe?' And I said, 'Oh no, I only did it for one season.' 'No, we want it again. We want it again.' And then suddenly it became the stripe. Um, and any logo, any logo, I would imagine at some point becomes a bit of a burden, or you feel like you want to reinvent it because it's attached to a period of time or something, which in fact did happen to me. I can't remember how many years ago now, when I completely stopped it, which was an incredibly foolish thing to do financially. It cost me five million quid, I seem to remember, and everybody was going, 'Oh, he's taking the stripe away. He's mad.' Uh, but what happened is that it was mostly primary colors and I thought it looked too crude. And so yes, it was a dangerous thing to do, but I redesigned it in more gentle colors and continued it. But the key thing is using it with care, you know. Yes, you've got a few things like an entire sweater, which is very popular actually. Um, but often it's just a little piece of a lining or a tiny thing.
Sorry, it was not me. [laughter] Was that me?
Which I actually can't believe at all. I mean, what's your secret, Sir Paul? You do seem so vibrant and vital, and you're still going to the shop every week.
Saturday boy. How does it feel being 80?
I mean, honestly, it's everybody else that's noticed I'm 80. You know, if nobody had told me, it wouldn't have made any difference. That's a burden as well, you know, because people obviously rather beautifully want to celebrate for you and send you cards and have parties and things. I'm like, 'No, no, I'm fine. I'm fine.' And they've sneaked a few little events in when without me knowing. But it's just a number, I think, for me. Luckily I'm so far — is there any wood here? Yes. Here we go. So far, you know, active, very active, big cyclist, pilates, swim every morning at five. I've always done that. Not for any other reason, just that I quite like doing it, you know. So hopefully I can still put my leg into the air.
Stop it. This is amazing. If you're listening to this podcast rather than watching it, Sir Paul has just lifted with total ease his leg up in a balletic posture by his ear. [laughter] That's extremely impressive. I'm not going to try and echo it. Um, but talking of cycling and fitness brings us on to your first failure, which is that cycling accident that I mentioned in the introduction. So you loved cycling from a young age.
Yes. I mean, it started really — life. I honestly can't really remember, which is mentioned in the book actually. I had a lovely childhood, but I can't really remember it. Um, my sister is eight years older and my brother was eleven years older, and life really began at eleven for me for two reasons. One is my father bought me a camera because he was an amateur photographer, and that was amazing because using a camera, that's all about looking and seeing. But the other thing he bought me was a bicycle, and it was a secondhand bicycle. And the chap that we bought it from said, 'I'm a member of the local cycle club. If your lad wants to come out on what they call the club runs at the weekend, he's always welcome. Don't worry, we'll take care of him.' You know, because I was by that time eleven and a half or twelve — no, eleven, still eleven. And so I started going out on the weekends, and then you'd go out looking around. I'm looking around everybody left and right and saying, 'Um, there's no parents.' [laughter] Yeah. It was sort of strange and wonderful that you're out with about twenty people and doing forty miles or fifty miles and eventually more, and that there was an amazing feeling. So then they persuaded me to start racing at twelve, because they have three categories in cycling: schoolboy, junior, and then the grown-ups. So I started as a schoolboy, then I had a junior license, and then, as many people know, I had an accident where I hit a car, or the car hit me, at seventeen. And that's where my life — that's why I'm here probably with you.
Before we get back to that, I'm very interested by what you said there about the sense of freedom. And it's definitely something I, as an amateur cyclist, always feel on a bicycle because you're so in the environment. And that whoosh of fresh air and being able to watch everything go by. But the experience you had of childhood was essentially that of an only child because your siblings were much older, weren't they? So was there a sort of quietness to your household?
Yeah, you know, people often ask me about my parents. And my father had a lovely character, really good with people, and hopefully I get some of that from him. And my mom was — if you want to say — oh, my mom, my mom was a mom. And she had a lovely voice, and that's what I really remember from her. So it was a very quiet childhood, but with this quiet creative dad who was a photographer as a hobby and had a darkroom in the attic which we had to climb a little ladder to get to. And he built — of course, my father built, did everything himself, not for financial reasons, just because he could do it.
You said also that your mother — you inherited a kind of conflict avoidance from her.
Yes. Yes, I definitely think it's a good thing and a bad thing. I think from a business point of view, with the public, I think it's been a great thing, but in-house it's probably not being very confrontational and sometimes addressing problems. Not that we've had many, but it's probably considered a weakness really. And of course my clothes are designed in a non-confrontational manner, whereas, you know, when we were starting, there was Vivienne Westwood around that time, Jean-Paul Gaultier, a lot of famous designers that were designing very, very outrageous clothes. Whereas mine — that's why the term 'classic with a twist' came about, because, you know, if you look inside something, there's always the little secret, like on the back of your waistcoat that you're wearing. The gilet that you're wearing has got a very beautiful printed photograph, actually, from my father, actually.
That's one of your father's photographs.
Yeah. Of — yes, of something that we've enlarged so it looks rather abstract, but it's a flower, actually.
That's fascinating. What's interesting about it is that when I wear a Paul Smith suit, I feel confident. So in a way, I can dress in a way that's comfortable, but if I did have to have a confrontation, I'd feel more confident doing it.
Yeah. Well, that's fabulous to hear. And also, you know, then you open up and there's a little different colored jetting in the pocket, or there's something hidden under the sleeve. Yes. Um, and I remember French film director Truffaut, and he got a Porsche with a jacket, and he was so classical, but then he was so cheeky when he opened it up and there was a little bit of color in there. I thought that was — I mean, because if you imagine the late 1970s, there wasn't really any high fashion for men, especially — a lot for women, but not so. Having that just the little secret was quite nice, actually. And of course the first shop was far smaller than the studio where we are now. It was twelve feet by twelve feet, and so therefore there was a real problem with making people relax straight away because they walked in and because they were in front of you straight away. So that's how Paul Smith shops — how the birth of having things like some ceramics or some art or something I'd found on a trip somewhere, as well as clothes, so that you could walk in and the customer was quite right in front of you and say, 'Oh, hi. I just came on a trip and I found this lovely poster.' And it was an icebreaker which made customers feel relaxed.
I love that you dressed François Truffaut. I mean, there's not many who can say that. That's pretty impressive. [laughter] I mean, I knew about David Bowie, but I didn't know about Truffaut and Godard. That's very cool. Okay. Going back to the teenage Paul — this road traffic accident that you had. It was very serious, wasn't it?
Yeah. I mean, it was a three-month-in-hospital job. Yeah. Broken femur, which I'm now pointing out — femur, collarbone, two ribs, fingers, nose. So in those days, because it was a long time ago now, it took a long time to heal from that because it was a very slow process. Now I think they'd just probably put a bit of stainless steel in your hand and you're out in a month or something. But it was a growing-up period for me. Of course, Nottinghamshire, which is where I come from, was famous for coal miners. So there was a lot of coal mine accidents. So, you know, while I was in there for three months, sixteen people died, and I'd never witnessed that. You know, you see the curtain that go around the bed, and you know that some of them were coal mine accidents, motorbike accidents, car accidents. My flexibility helped, and in those days even, they nicknamed me the praying mantis. So because I had one leg that was free and one leg that was in traction, and I developed the ability to have a spoon in the foot and make jokes about, 'Oh, I'm just going to get my own lunch with my flexibility.' [laughter] So that amused a lot of the other patients and cheered them up. Humor has been such an important part of my life, and I think it's a vital ingredient. My Japanese team — you know, I have quite a lot of shops in Japan and a big office there — they say, 'Oh, Paul's job.' Yes. Head of happiness. That's my job. What a great job. I do clothes as well. Yeah. [laughter]
So at seventeen, you have these three months in hospital. Are you ever scared?
Yeah. I mean, well, I was scared I wouldn't be able to walk or ride a bike again because, you know, your joints lock up even at that young age. And [snorts] my sweet dad — I knew that he did it. He never told me he did it, but my cycling friends were coming in and we said, 'Oh, we did this run last week and I was in that race.' And I was getting more and more sad by hearing — I suppose envious of the fact that they were doing it. And then suddenly they came but didn't talk about it, and I thought, I know my dad's had a word with them. So sweet man.
You've left school by this point. So...
Fifteen. Yes. I was not good at school. Well, I probably was okay, but I just couldn't concentrate, you know. And also I didn't know until a lot longer later that I suffer from dyslexia. So, which I'd love to be able to spell. I can't. [laughter]
So this cycling accident at seventeen actually changes the course of your life in many ways. How do you then end up in fashion?
Well, what happened was that because of my activities in the ward and sort of chatting to other people in the hospital, two of the other patients — we got to know each other even though we never actually shook hands because they were locked in beds as well. And by chance we were all released at the same time, and one of them said, 'Why don't we just keep in touch?' You know, because we all got on so well. And one of them just said, 'Oh, let's meet in Nottingham,' and chose a place called the Bell Inn in Nottingham, which is where the art students — that was their watering hall. Okay. It's now called the university, but then it was called an art school. So there was architecture students, photography students, fine artists, and fashion. And then meeting them with my sort of ability to be able to chat to people, suddenly this world opened up to me. And one of the little groups I got to know there was a girl whose father was setting her up with a little shop, a clothes shop. And she said, 'Oh, Paul, do you mind trying to help me with a shop? I don't know how to open a shop. I don't know how you get a shop. I can make the clothes, but...' And I said, 'Yeah, sure,' like I really knew, which of course I didn't really know. So suddenly at seventeen, eighteen by then, I was talking to — which is completely normal now, but then talking to somebody called an estate agent or a solicitor about a lease. So that was amazing. So I helped her and then worked as a shop assistant there. Then did the window dressing. Then eventually we started to buy men's clothes because she was a women's designer. And then the big turning point was Pauline, of course, three years into that job, because I'd stayed close to the art school. Whenever there were events on, I was always invited to the art school events. And then when my twenty-first birthday came, my father very generously gave me twenty-one pounds, which I immediately spent on alcohol [laughter] and all my pals. We went to this place called the Yates's Wine Lodge in Nottingham with the art students, and Pauline came along with the students because she was teaching two days a week in Nottingham. She lived in London and had two children.
Did you know straight away? I mean, of course, she's called Pauline, so in many ways it feels destined. But that night on your twenty-first birthday, the serendipity of it — you didn't know.
Not at all. And all my friends were saying, 'Oh, she's amazing. You see, she looks so cool.' And I was just a boy, you know. I was into Dylan and Zeppelin and all the bands and drinking and mucking about. I used the word 'mucking about' intentionally because it was just boyish, you know. Yeah. And I mean, she was the main reason I'm here with you now, really. The crash, of course. Yes. And then Pauline, because she set a standard, which is very important in fashion. So the suit you're wearing is really beautiful because she set the standard of the correct pads, how it's constructed, what the interlining is, the quality of the button, the quality of the buttonhole, and that's been very important for longevity.
Pauline sounds an extraordinary woman. You have known her now for almost sixty years.
Yeah. Yeah. We met in '67. Yeah.
