Sir Paul Smith - ‘People In Fashion Are Insecure’

Sir Paul Smith is one of Britain’s most iconic fashion designers, renowned for his sharp tailoring and his sartorial flair. His clothes have an innate sense of mischief: brightly coloured linings, unexpected stripes and a determination never to take themselves too seriously. His devoted clients include Gary Oldman, Bill Nighy and Matty Healy, who wore a Paul Smith suit for his recent wedding. Behind the stripes and the suits is a man with a simple life philosophy: stay humble, work hard, be kind. On this episode we talk about the cycling accident that set him on a path to fashion and how he’s kept his global business independent for 56 years. Plus, the secret to a long marriage, what tailoring teaches him about people’s insecurities - and why he wore a suit every day during the Covid lockdowns. IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Intro 03:40 Tailoring for Everyone 06:48 The Pink Wall Story 08:31 Stripes and Reinvention 10:20 Turning 80 11:33 Cycling Freedom and Family 18:20 Crash That Changed Everything 24:20 Pauline Sets The Standard 25:19 Keeping Love And Work Balanced 26:19 Step Parenting And Playfulness 27:28 The Trap Of Comparison 32:43 Brexit COVID And Staying Independent 36:02 Choosing The Right Collaborations 37:21 Believing Your Own Hype 42:47 Creativity Legacy And Farewell 💬 QUOTES TO REMEMBER: Pauline [my wife] set the standard - it’s been very important for longevity. A successful relationship is about balance. Knowing when to talk, when to listen… and have both feet on the ground. The danger is losing your focus, and worrying too much about ‘them’. 🔗 LINKS + MENTIONS: Sir Paul Smith’s Memoir ‘Threads’ is available to buy now: www.paulsmith.com/uk/threads-by-sir-paul-smith-special-edition-book Join the How To Fail community: www.howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Elizabeth’s Substack: www.theelizabethday.substack.com 📚 WANT MORE? Edward Enninful - swap.fm/l/NOAt5NDZeBTgX6qZUWpB Bella Freud - swap.fm/l/mQntNELQPRhZ9CjFQO77 💌 LOVE THIS EPISODE? Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories 👋 Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Instagram: @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod Podcast Instagram: @howtofailpod Website: www.elizabethday.org Elizabeth and Sir Paul answer listener questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: https://lnk.to/7i0moR Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: askhowtofail.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Engineer: Matias Torres Assistant Producer: Shania Manderson Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Alex Lawless How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  It's everybody else that's noticed I'm 80. You know, if nobody had told me, I wouldn't have, wouldn't have made any difference. They call, they say, oh, Paul's job. Yes. Head of happiness.

• 0:11Elizabeth Day?

  Oh.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  That's my job.

• 0:13Elizabeth Day?

  What a great job.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  I do clothes as well.

• 0:14Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  I was leaving 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.

• 0:26Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. 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.

• 0:47Elizabeth Day?

  Confession time. I have a tendency to postpone certain decisions for far longer than is sensible. Not the big life decisions, oddly enough, those I can usually handle. It's the smaller ones that somehow become disproportionately complicated. For me, rugs fall squarely into that category. I've known for a long time that a rug can completely change how a room feels, but I've always found sizing for a space tricky. That's why Ernesta appealed to me. Ernesta makes designer quality rugs custom cut to the exact dimensions of your space. So instead of making do with something that's close enough, you're choosing something made specifically for your home. I also love the fact that you can order five oversized 12 by 12 samples

• 1:31Elizabeth Day?

  for just $10 before committing. And Ernesta's design team will help with sizing completely free of charge. Visit ernestacom and order five samples for only $10 and you'll get $50 towards any rug of your choice. That's ernestacom. 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 coloured 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.

• 2:13Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 2:53Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 3:34Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 3:45Speaker 00

  That was a very, very nice introduction, very posh.

• 3:49Elizabeth Day?

  Well, good one. Glad you proved it.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  It said very, what was it, smart or elegant, sartorial? And I'm in a purposely washed suit today.

• 4:00Elizabeth Day?

  You look wonderful.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  So more relaxed today.

• 4:04Elizabeth Day?

  You look, you always look wonderful and I must say, I am wearing one of my many Paul Smith.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  You look great. Yeah. I think I look relaxed, but.

• 4:12Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 4:32Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 4:42Speaker 00

  Yes, I mean, and that's the background of Paul Smith, really, tailoring, mostly because of what you described in night, 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.

• 5:01Elizabeth Day?

  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 realised that 15% of your client base was female.

• 5:10Speaker 00

  That's right. Yes. And it was Grace Coddington, the, the, the well-known lady from British Vogue and American Vogue, a stylist, and who just kept putting people in Paul Smith men's clothes. And, and then one day she was saying, yeah, we do need occasionally a skirt or do 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, and so Paul Smith is, women's is essentially tailoring, really.

• 5:50Elizabeth Day?

  When you're fitting someone for a suit, do you feel that you get to know them?

• 5:57Speaker 00

  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, 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 purposely created for all those men and ladies that have, over the years, think, oh, well, it's too rigid, a suit is too rigid. And so we're saying, yes, but you can make a suit which is more relaxed as well.

• 6:39Elizabeth Day?

  Do you get to know their insecurities as well?

• 6:42Speaker 00

  I, I mean.

• 6:44Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  We, we do, of course, we have ready to wear, well, 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, that's 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, and that's where you start to learn why, when do you think you're 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.

• 7:30Elizabeth Day?

  Is it difficult to make a suit for someone you don't like?

• 7:34Speaker 00

  I'm actually, I'm a very strange person because I like people. So, you know, you don't like their politics or their behaviour or their bad manners, but essentially they're a human being. So try, try to behave.

• 7:51Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 8:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:16Elizabeth Day?

  Tell us the story of how that came about.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  I mean, the joy of independence is the fact that you can think, hmm, maybe I'll build a pink shoebox on Melrose Avenue. And, and the only person you ask is the guy when you're shaving in, in the morning and you see yourself in the mirror. Melrose Avenue is, 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 Barragan,

• 9:03Speaker 00

  who is famous for his collar. So Pauline and I, my wife and I, went to Mexico City to look at his home that he built, some chapel, some ranch. They were always in bright colours and so that's, that's how it came about. And now it's the most Instagrammed, Instagrammed wall in California and probably in America. It's ridiculous how many, I think about 400 people a day.

• 9:31Elizabeth Day?

  Amazing.

• 9:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, that was all by chance.

• 9:34Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. And stripes, that's another thing which people associate with you. Are you sick of them?

• 9:39Speaker 00

  No. The stripes became my logo without, you know, by default really. Because in the nineties, I just created a stripe that had lots of colours in it, thinking it was just for one season. It was a summer season. And then in the winter, I didn't include it in the collection. And then several of the retailers that buy from were saying, 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. And any logo, any logo, I would imagine at some point becomes a bit of a burden

• 10:21Speaker 00

  or you feel like you want to reinvent it because it's got, 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 was fine. I mean, that's a good failure. Yeah. Yeah. It cost me five million quid, I seem to remember. And everybody was going, oh, he's taking the stripe away. He's mad. But what happened is that I, it was mostly primary colours and I thought it looked too crude. And, and so, yes, it was a dangerous thing to do, but I redesigned it in more gentle colours and continued.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  But the key thing is using it with care, you know?

• 11:10Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  You've got a few things like an entire sweater, which is very popular actually. But often it's just a little, little piece of a lining or tiny thing.

• 11:23Elizabeth Day?

  You turned eighty in July.

• 11:25Speaker 00

  Sorry, it was not me.

• 11:27Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 11:39Speaker 00

  Yep, Saturday boy.

• 11:40Elizabeth Day?

  Saturday boy. How does it feel being eighty?

• 11:43Speaker 00

  I mean, honestly, it's everybody else that's noticed I'm eighty. You know, if nobody had told me, I wouldn't have, wouldn't have made any difference. That's a burden as well, yeah, because people obviously rather beautifully want to celebrate for you and send you cards and have parties and things. And I'm like, no, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. And they've sneaked a few little events in without me knowing. But it's just a number, I think, for me. Luckily, I'm so far, is there any wood here?

• 12:18Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, here we go.

• 12:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, 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 could still put my leg into the air.

• 12:35Elizabeth Day?

  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. That's extremely impressive. I'm not going to try and echo it. But talking of cycling and of fitness brings us on to your first failure, which is that cycling accident that I mentioned in the introduction.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 12:57Elizabeth Day?

  So you loved cycling from a young age.

• 13:00Speaker 00

  Yes, I mean, it started really, life, I honestly can't really, which is mentioned in the book, actually. I had a lovely childhood, but I can't really remember it. My sister was, is eight years older and my brother was 11 years older. And life really began at 11 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 about looking and seeing. But the other thing he bought me was a bicycle. And I was, it was a secondhand bicycle. And the chap that we bought it from said, I'm a member of the local cycle club.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  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 11 and a half or 12. No, 11, still 11. And then 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, there's no parents.

• 14:09Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  It was sort of strange and wonderful that you're out with about 20 people and doing 40 miles or 50 miles and eventually more. And that, there was an amazing feeling. So then they persuaded me to start racing at 12 because they have three categories in cycling, a schoolboy, junior and then the grownups. So I started as a schoolboy, then I had a junior licence. And then, as many, many people know, I had an accident where I hit a car, or the car hit me, at 17. And that's where my life, that's why I'm here probably with you.

• 14:52Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 15:04Elizabeth Day?

  And that, 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?

• 15:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, people often ask me about my parents. And then, and my father was, had a lovely character, really good with people. And hopefully I get some of that from him. And my mum, if you want to say, oh, my mum, my mum was a mum. And she had a lovely voice. And that's, that's what I really remember from her. So it was a very quiet childhood. But with this quite creative dad who's a photographer and 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.

• 16:06Elizabeth Day?

  You said also that your mother, you inherited a kind of conflict avoidance from her.

• 16:11Speaker 00

  Yes. Yes, I definitely, I think it's a good thing and a bad thing, I think. From a business point of view, I don't think it's, with the public, I think it's been a great thing. But in-house, it's probably me 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,

• 16:49Speaker 00

  Jean Paul Gautier, a lot of famous designers that were very, 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, gilet that you're wearing, it's got a very beautiful printed, printed photograph, actually, from my father, actually.

• 17:17Elizabeth Day?

  That's one of your father's photographs?

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, of something that we've enlarged. So it looks rather abstract, but it's a flower, actually.

• 17:25Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, I love knowing that.

• 17:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:27Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, that's fabulous to hear. And also, you know, then you open up and there's a little different coloured jetting in the pocket or there's something hidden under the sleeve.

• 17:49Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  And I remember French film director Truffaut. And he got a Paul Smith jacket and he was so classical. But then he was so cheeky when he opened the, opened it up and there was a little bit of colour in there. I thought that was, I mean, because if you imagine 1970s, late, we, 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 this studio where we are now. It was 12 foot by 12 foot. And so therefore, there was a real problem with making people relax straight away

• 18:35Speaker 00

  because they walked in and it was, 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.

• 19:08Elizabeth Day?

  I love that you dressed Francois Truffaut. I mean, there's not many people who can say that, that's pretty impressive.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, and Godard.

• 19:15Elizabeth Day?

  Wow.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:18Elizabeth Day?

  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?

• 19:29Speaker 00

  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 just probably put a bit of stainless steel in your head 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, is, was famous for coal miners. So there was a lot of coal mine accidents.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  So, you know, when I was in there for three months, 16 people died in. And I, you know, I'd never witnessed that. You know, you see the curtain that go around the bed and you know that, you know, some of them were, some of them were coal mine accidents, motorbike accidents, car accidents. My flexibility helped and they, in those days even, because 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, in the foot

• 20:49Speaker 00

  and make, make jokes about, oh, I'm just going to get my own lunch with my, with my flexibility.

• 20:57Elizabeth Day?

  So you were eating yogurt with your foot, basically?

• 20:59Speaker 00

  Basically, yeah, yeah.

• 21:00Elizabeth Day?

  The spoon held in your foot?

• 21:01Speaker 00

  In my toes, yeah.

• 21:02Elizabeth Day?

  Amazing.

• 21:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, so that amused a lot of the other patients and cheered them up. Humour's 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 call, they say, oh, Paul's job, yes, head of happiness.

• 21:20Elizabeth Day?

  Oh.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  That's my job.

• 21:22Elizabeth Day?

  What a great job.

• 21:22Speaker 00

  I do clothes as well.

• 21:23Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. So at 17, you have these three months in hospital, are you ever scared?

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, while 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 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're saying, oh, we did this run last week and we, I was in that race and I was getting more and more sad by hearing, I suppose, envious of their, the fact that they was 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, sweet man.

• 22:09Elizabeth Day?

  You've left school by this point, so.

• 22:11Speaker 00

  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, a little later, that I was, I suffer from dyslexia. So, which I'd love to be able to spell, I can't.

• 22:28Elizabeth Day?

  So this cycling accident at seventeen actually changes the course of your life in many ways. How do you then end up in fashion?

• 22:37Speaker 00

  Well, what happened was that because of my activities in the, and sort of chatting to other people in the ward at 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, yeah, 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, well, 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 hole. It's

• 23:20Speaker 00

  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 that was, her 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 I of course didn't really know. So suddenly at seventeen, eighteen by then, I was talking

• 24:05Speaker 00

  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 in, yeah, to that job. And 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 21st birthday, my father very generously gave me £21, which he immediately

• 24:50Speaker 00

  spent on alcohol. And all my pals, we went to this place called the Yates's Wine Lodge in Nottingham and 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.

• 25:11Elizabeth Day?

  Did you know straight away, I mean, of course, she's called Pauline. So in many ways it feels destined.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:16Elizabeth Day?

  But that night on your 21st birthday, the serendipity of it, you didn't know.

• 25:20Speaker 00

  Not at all. And all my friends were saying, oh, she's amazing. You see, she looks so cool. And I was, I was, I was just a boy, you know, I was like into Dylan and Zeppelin and all the bands and drinking and mucking about. I use the word mucking about intentionally because it was just boyish, you know. And I mean, she was the main reason I'm here with you now, really. The crash, of course.

• 25:46Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 25:47Speaker 00

  And then Pauline, because she sets 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, quality of the button, the quality of the buttonhole. And that's been very important for longevity.

• 26:11Elizabeth Day?

  Pauline sounds an extraordinary woman. You have known her now for almost 60 years.

• 26:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, we met in 67, yeah.

• 26:22Elizabeth Day?

  How have you kept your relationship, both personal and professional, on a secure footing in all that time?

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, I think with this interview, with everything we do, we both hope we get a nice interview out of it. So it's very much about balance. It's very much about knowing when to listen, which I'm not very good at this morning. Sorry about that. I'm talking too much. But yeah.

• 26:46Elizabeth Day?

  No, you're talking wonderfully. You don't think that.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  When to listen, when to talk, try to be interested, interesting. Key thing is when you come at home, home at night is, don't just keep talking about what you've done. Just be interested in what she's done and how her day was and how she's feeling. And then of course, the other thing is she's fantastic, which probably think we might, I think you hinted at, we might be talking about later on. But, you know, feet on the ground.

• 27:20Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 27:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:21Elizabeth Day?

  Before we get on to that, you mentioned that she had two children when you met. So aged 21, I speak as a stepparent myself. That's a lot to take on and also a joy in many ways. But stepparenting, I feel, doesn't get spoken about that much. And I would love to know about your experience. How have you found it?

• 27:41Speaker 00

  We're purposely quite private about that aspect of it. If you can imagine, without me dwelling on it too much, I was leaving home with my mum 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.

• 28:00Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  But the age group, of course, it was quite different. Seven and, what was it, six and eight or something. But I mean, in a way, you're similar, especially because of my playfulness.

• 28:16Elizabeth Day?

  Have you ever gone through a period of your life where you've lost your playfulness?

• 28:21Speaker 00

  Never.

• 28:21Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, that's good.

• 28:22Speaker 00

  I adore it. And it's not a forced thing. It's completely natural thing.

• 28:30Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD, because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. NoCD provides specialised treatment for OCD. And what I appreciate about their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's exposure and response prevention. And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become

• 29:12Elizabeth Day?

  manageable, so you can live more of the life you want to live. If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail. Okay, so going on to your second failure, it is about the people that Pauline calls them.

• 29:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:34Elizabeth Day?

  Who are they?

• 29:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, them have been, in the early days, just another boutique, as they were called, then opening in Nottingham, you know, which, if you can imagine, when we first opened, October the 9th, 1970, there was really no fashion shops in provincial towns around, around the country. But then, you know, probably into two years in, there'd be a boutique open. And it'd be like, oh, they've opened and people are going to them. And then Pauline.

• 30:10Elizabeth Day?

  This would be you fearing this, over fixating on competition?

• 30:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, worried about them.

• 30:18Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, yes.

• 30:19Speaker 00

  And then, and then of course, so that's, that's on a very small level. But then what happens in, this is not just me, for sure. It's almost everybody in the fashion industry, probably fairly insecure. Around the table where I work with my designers, there's always the comparison of, oh, have you seen what this brand's doing or what that's brand's, oh, we really should be doing that, or it's gone very minimal, or our shops look, you know, too dated now, shouldn't we be doing. So there was, there's always

• 30:57Speaker 00

  this comparison of, you know, what other people are doing. And so the danger is, and this is a failure or a joy, I don't know which, losing your focus and worrying too much about them. And that can be seen as a failure, really. For instance, if suddenly you walked into Paul Smith's shop and it was, you know, white with a black floor and everybody was wearing black and there was no music, people would feel very, what's happened here? So it's the danger, the failure is worrying too much about what other people do.

• 31:35Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, that's amazing to hear because I'm also someone who falls into comparisonitis and have had periods in the past of feeling like, well, look at all these other people and they're doing so much better. And I should, exactly as you say, be more like them. And it's taken me quite a while to work out that, as you say, you should actually drill deeper down into what makes you you than trying to please absolutely everyone.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  And it takes, it takes, you know, a certain security, a certain mind to be able to do that. Yeah. You've got to feel quite confident without being arrogant. That's, that's the important thing. And be yourself as well. But, you know, the problem is, is the, the communication now and the information that we get through that little thing we carry in our pocket. You know, Pauline has no telephone.

• 32:31Elizabeth Day?

  Really?

• 32:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. And we have.

• 32:33Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, again, she just seems amazing.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  And we have no computer.

• 32:37Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  So, you know, when you don't allow yourself to be bombarded with comparisons, oh, they've got two cars. Oh, they've got three houses. Oh my God, they just sold for a billion pounds. Don't worry about it.

• 32:52Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  You've got your health, you've got your happiness, you enjoy the sunshine, you enjoy the rain, camaraderie, talk, speech, conversation. I mean, there's so many joys in everyday life that we seem to have been missing the point. You know, large amounts of money can't bring you health and happiness.

• 33:14Elizabeth Day?

  So wise. How long and how, how long did it take you to feel secure in yourself and what you offered? And how did you get there?

• 33:26Speaker 00

  I think the security at home has always been very important. And a lot of my colleagues and friends haven't had security at home. And I think that's, that's difficult because you're always looking, you're always searching for friendship or love or, and that's insecure, obviously, and uses a lot of energy up, which isn't to do with your work. So that's.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  I was just really lucky to have that at home, which means that my day is very much about concentrating on the on the job.

• 34:05Elizabeth Day?

  And has Pauline always been someone who is very clear, who was able to delineate between us and them more clearly?

• 34:13Speaker 00

  Without question, yeah. Very, very, I'm a very shy person, very well read, very simple in her way of thinking about things, just and not at all impressed by wealth or material things, not at all. No, far more interested in the beauty of a day, you know.

• 34:42Elizabeth Day?

  Talking about this failure specifically, has there ever been a time with your business where you have really worried about its future and found yourself straying and thinking, well, maybe we should be slightly different?

• 34:56Speaker 00

  Definitely, but definitely Brexit and Covid. And that's in the book, very honestly, very, very honestly, because it was a complete nightmare, you know, because Brexit was just something that we absolutely didn't want. And that immediately we had all these new rules about trading with the various countries around the world and more paperwork and a different way of doing things and having to itemise absolutely where everything came from, where you can't say made in Italy, you have to say where the yarn comes from. It was massively complicated, a big user of money and time and energy.

• 35:41Speaker 00

  And then, of course, Covid, 16 weeks without trading anywhere in the world. So as an independent company, you haven't got any secret, you know, a lot of the big brands have so many diverse businesses. So there might be a fashion, they might have 60 fashion brands, but also they have sports centres and water or alcohol or, yeah, so they've got different income streams. Whereas when you Paul Smith, he's Paul Smith. So that was real user of money. Of course, just as a little side thing, you know, I was in my building on my own every day during Covid.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  And that's the start of the book is quite amusing about some of the things that happened.

• 36:27Elizabeth Day?

  The milk.

• 36:29Speaker 00

  Did you remember?

• 36:30Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, yeah, tell us the milk story, just quickly.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  And then I will, I only realised the other day, I wore a suit every day and I was on my own in the building because I just find suits really useful, pocket for the specs, handkerchief, keys, credit card, notebook, pen. The milk, yeah, I mean, obviously you, wasn't it a Tuesday we got told to stop work? And on the Wednesday I was allowed to go in because I went in a car on my own, into a building on my own. And the first thing was, of course, 120 waste bins with leftover sandwiches from the day before. So I emptied those and I was, I was like, I wonder if Giorgio, Mr Aman is doing this right now.

• 37:20Speaker 00

  And then about two weeks in, I arrived and there was this terrible, terrible smell. And I realised that 18 litres of milk in the kitchen where we, when we have guests had exploded and it took me three hours to clean it off the floor.

• 37:37Elizabeth Day?

  In your suit?

• 37:38Speaker 00

  It was great. It didn't matter at all. It was fantastic. I had to mend the electric gate because my car got stuck in, had to work out the irrigation system or the roof garden. Just don't worry about it. Just get on with it, it's fine. I thought it was brilliant.

• 37:56Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, well, it sounds to me like your dad.

• 37:59Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, exactly like my dad.

• 38:02Elizabeth Day?

  It's very impressive that you have stayed true to Paul Smith values in a world of homogeneity. Especially in fashion. And you've combined that with doing a lot of collaborations, like you've actually stayed true to your identity no matter what. How hard has that been sometimes?

• 38:21Speaker 00

  Well, saying no to collab, most collaborations is the key. Listen to your tummy and just go, barber, I've always loved barber. It's a British brand, it's fantastic. It goes from a trendy person, Gladstonebury, to the King, you know, it's so fabulous. Yes, barber, we do that. And there's one out at the moment, which is extraordinarily popular, Mini. I've always driven a Mini car, so got a Paul Smith Mini. So, so it's just a matter of doing things that feel correct.

• 38:56Elizabeth Day?

  I'd love to know some of those collaborations you've turned down, but I'm not going to ask you because I know you.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  Well, I can tell you a very, a very ridiculous one, which I got a sketch sent to me of a very bad drawing of me at an ironing board.

• 39:11Elizabeth Day?

  As an ironing board?

• 39:13Speaker 00

  And an iron, so I did decline that one.

• 39:18Speaker 00

  A Paul Smith ironing board.

• 39:19Elizabeth Day?

  That's brilliant. We're going to take a quick break now, but Sir Paul, you will be back to discuss a failure about believing your own hype.

• 39:29Elizabeth Day?

  There are so many things I wish I'd known when I started this podcast and my production company, Daylight. Like, why am I spending hours trying to make a website look good? Why am I designing everything from scratch? And why am I spending all my time just doing admin? What I really needed was one place that could do all of this for me. Enter Shopify. Shopify has beautiful, ready-made templates that make your website look polished without needing to become a graphic designer overnight. Its AI tools can help you get your site up and running quickly. And Shopify checkout makes it really easy for customers to actually go from, ooh, I like that, to, yes, I'll have one. If Shopify had existed when I started out, I could have saved myself a lot of time, stress

• 40:15Elizabeth Day?

  and some rogue design choices. If you're ready to hear the

• 40:20Elizabeth Day?

  of your first sale today, head over to Shopify.co.uk/fail to start your free trial today. That's right, start your free trial at Shopify.co.uk/fail. Your final failure is the danger of believing your own hype. Tell us about this.

• 40:38Speaker 00

  I mean, that's a big problem for masses of human beings. I don't know whether you agree, but I mean, we've seen it happen so much with ego and narcissism and of course this unbelievable narcissistic society we live in today. You know, when I'm driving around London, you know, there's just the quantity of people posing and taking photographs of themselves and then taking 40 pictures and looking at them immediately. So that, that whole thing about self-importance is baffling to me.

• 41:23Speaker 00

  And then, of course, you know, you've been, you've done amazing things. And so you just, if you don't, if you're not careful, you start thinking, believing your own over publicity in some cases, or a lot of publicity. So I've never, I mean, Pauline's been brilliant with that. I mean, you know, you get back from a very important trip and she reminds you that you've got to put the rubbish out and have the car MOT, you know, it's great.

• 41:51Elizabeth Day?

  Were there moments when you feel that your ego was being inflated, that you needed that?

• 41:58Speaker 00

  I mean, you just have to be, you just have to pinch yourself and, you know, stop yourself from, you know, from getting carried away with it. In Japan, you know, for many, many years, I was really like a rock star over there, you know, get there, you get mobbed, you get, you get cornered in the street and had to escape through a fire escape, all sorts of things. I did a talk in a university there and they said, oh, there's going to be at least 600 people in the audience. And we arrived and there was 2,800 people. And we had to, I did the talk twice, back to back for everybody. And so, you know, if you don't, if you're not careful, you could end up thinking how

• 42:40Speaker 00

  wonderful you are, whereas you're just, hopefully just interesting and full of character.

• 42:46Elizabeth Day?

  Why do you think you are so beloved in Japan?

• 42:50Speaker 00

  Hard work, I think, and respecting their

• 42:55Speaker 00

  Their ways. Um. I went there in the eighties. I was invited there in eighty two. And a lot, uh, during that time, a lot of European and American designers were invited over because they were very cash rich as a country then, and they were trying to invest in the future. So they invited a lot of not just fashion designers, product designers, furniture designers, interior designers. And many, many, many of them went and in my opinion were very disrespectful. In the fact that they were like, oh, yes, we go there. We, yeah, we're treated VIP and we earn money, great money, and you don't really have to do anything.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  And of course, a lot of people went there that were very demanding about first class travel, chauffeur driven car, top hotel and and, uh, and so many of them just fell by the wayside. I just got this invitation to go to Japan. I was like, Japan? Wow. How exciting is that? And then I said, oh, my, as my director must come as well, Pauline. And so we went eighteen hours via Anchorage, uh, economy class. Uh, we could hardly stand up after, we were so tiny, the aeroplane was so tiny. And just to go there and just think, this amazing opportunity to come here. Of course, it's very popular now with tourism now because of the yen and

• 44:19Speaker 00

  many, there are many, many visitors now. But then eighty two, almost nobody spoke English. And of course, I'm quite tall, so everybody was like, looking at you, taking pictures. Uh, all the pictures, of course, was up your nose because they were all quite tiny and then and there were photographs from below. But I went there thinking, wow, this is amazing and respecting the history, respecting their way of working, their humble approach to things. But then the only thing I could not fault, but ob- observe that it was a bit too chauvinistic. But we, we, we, as a company, we adjusted that enormously. We said we've got lots of our key staff or

• 45:04Speaker 00

  from, uh, ladies as well as gentlemen. And I think there's a hundred and forty five shops now in Japan.

• 45:11Elizabeth Day?

  Incredible.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  Uh, Mr. Omani, who sadly passed away last year, but he was a friend of mine and he always said to me, how did you break into the Japanese market? So interesting, so interesting. I just said, by going and listening and absorbing and then trying to integrate rather than, you know, just go like a, you know, too strong.

• 45:35Elizabeth Day?

  How interesting. And it takes us right back to the beginning when we were talking about the power of attention. Because attention is a form of politeness and generosity and that combined with your curiosity. What, what a success story. I'm very interested in how your mind works. You, you said earlier, you feel like your mind is a bit crazy.

• 45:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't really know. I mean, it's very lateral.

• 46:00Elizabeth Day?

  Right.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  I'm a huge lateral thinker, big fan of Edward de Bono, the famous lateral thinker. Um, I, I, I always think left and right of the obvious. So go left and right of the obvious, but still respecting the principle of what it is you're trying to do.

• 46:17Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 46:18Speaker 00

  And then you'll be okay.

• 46:20Elizabeth Day?

  When it comes to inspiration for collections, I know because your spring summer twenty twenty seven, which I love the, the, the, the label you gave it, suits in unsuitable situations.

• 46:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:31Elizabeth Day?

  And that came from a specific memory.

• 46:33Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah, there was a picture of my grandad, um, on the beach in Skegness in Lincolnshire with his trousers rolled in a suit, with his, in the sea, with his trousers rolled up with me, aged three or something. And, and, and just the fact that my father passed away when he was ninety two, he wore suit every day. A shirt and tie every day at home, every day. Almost every human being, male, wore a suit. And you wore a suit for school. You, you, there was not a, there wasn't anything called casual wear. It was always suits. And then so that made me think about suits in

• 47:14Speaker 00

  the wrong place, you know, which is, which is quite, quite fun, I think.

• 47:20Elizabeth Day?

  And do you often get sort of an image that will then spark a creative thought?

• 47:25Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah. I mean, I was, I was just with, there's a Spanish magazine is doing a big project with me at the moment and they were, they were fascinated by this folder I've got of all my little notes, which are just pieces of paper that when I write things down and they said, oh, what's this one? It says butterfly wings. And I said, oh, well, I just love the iridescent quality of a butterfly wing that's got this shine to it. So that, for me, interpreted into mercerizing a cotton. Mercerizing means to give it a shiny finish. Just came from looking at the butterfly. So very strange. And I'm sorry, I'm a bit weird.

• 48:08Elizabeth Day?

  You're, no, it's very beautiful. I've learnt something today, mercerizing. Never heard that before.

• 48:14Speaker 00

  Mercerized cotton, yeah. It gives it a shiny, crunchy, uh, quality and, and, and it's sort of that if you look at the center of a butterfly's wing, it's, it's sort of very sort of odd because there's two incorrect colors together often that, that go.

• 48:31Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, gosh, I could listen to you talk all day about creativity and staying true to yourself. I wonder, final question, what your lovely father, what do you think he'd make of you now?

• 48:43Speaker 00

  There were two things that impressed my dad with me. He never really knew exactly what I did, really. But one, there was a little feature in the Beast and Gazette and Echo, which was the local newspaper. My mum and dad were very pleased. And then when I got the freedom of the city of Nottingham, uh, they were very pleased. So he was pleased at those two things and a lot more probably, but I think he'd be pleased with my good manners.

• 49:16Elizabeth Day?

  I'm sure he would, and I'm sure he'd be pleased that you worked out the irrigation system on the roof gardens.

• 49:21Speaker 00

  He'd be very pleased about that. Yeah, he'd be, so was I. To be honest, I got this call one day from, um, emergency call that said that there was in our room where all the computers are. Is overheating?

• 49:39Elizabeth Day?

  Mm hmm.

• 49:40Speaker 00

  I didn't even know we had a room with computers. Then I had to find out the code to get into the room. And then I had to find a fan and put the fan to try and cool it down. Then I opened the window and a seagull tried to come in. And, and so I thought, I can't have you in here. So I had to close the door. So I thought, how can I get some wind into the room, air into the room? So I built a a, out of wood, a frame with gaps in it and put the wood there. So the seagull couldn't get in, but the wind could get in. So we kept the, whatever that big computer, probably worth a grillion, a grillion pounds, kept cool.

• 50:23Elizabeth Day?

  But is this during Covid as well?

• 50:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:26Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, my gosh. So, Paul, you are a phenomenon. You really are. You fix things and you make us all feel better while doing so. Um, thank you so much. Thank you for dressing me for many years and, and thank you for being.

• 50:37Speaker 00

  It's lovely to talk to you. Thank you.

• 50:39Elizabeth Day?

  It's so lovely to talk to you too. Before you go, we're going to dive into some listener questions over on Failing with Friends. Recently I had David Sedaris on and he gave some quite, some quite bold advice, particularly to a listener who was failing to feel content in their own life. So stay put and we'll do that next. Thank you so much for coming on How to Fail.

• 50:58Speaker 00

  Thank you. Bye.

• 51:03Elizabeth Day?

  Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.