Paul Smith -These Are a Few of My Favourite Things The Culture Show

If you're ever in Covent Garden early in the morning, you might see

a tall, sharply dressed man making his way to his office. An office

like no other. This is Sir Paul Smith -

photographer, prankster, collector of things weird and wonderful. You

probably know him as Paul Smith, fashion designer and godfather of

accessorised and deodorised metrosexual man.

To him, things aren't just things, they're entertainment, ideas,

inspiration. The most unlikely objects, a bird, a twig or a plate

of spaghetti might transform into a suit lining, a shirt pattern or even

a car make over. Here at the Design Museum in London,

preparations are underway for a new exhibition which takes a journey

through his archives and his designs. From his first tiny shop in

Nottingham, he's built an empire that blazed a trail in Japan for

other British designers. And his shops, selling his quirky take on

classic British tailoring changed our sartorial landscape for ever. So

come with me into Paul Smith's dizzying and eccentric world to find

out what keeps his feet so firmly on the ground in the most faddish and

fickle industry yet. Hello? Welcome to my brain. -- to my

world! And is it true that this office is like the inside of your

head? Unfortunately I think it's very true and slightly worrying!

What is all this stuff? In my defence a lot of this is sent to me

on a regular basis. I've got one person who has been sending me

things for many many years. Really? Without a box. It's got stamps all

over it and your address on. Was this actually sent through the post?

Just like this. All these things are never in a box. What, 20 years?

They've been coming from an unknown fan. There is nothing on it. It's

just stuff. Oh lovely, have you worn these? No, I haven't. Whether you

call it a hoard or a collection, what do the hundreds of things

accumulating in his office - the bric a brac, toys, gifts, portraits

and hundreds of books - really tell us about the man? If I asked you to

show me something, something that meant a lot to you, where would you

start? Oh gosh, probably the first brush with using my eye was through

my father who was an amateur photographer and I think over here

in my little camera collection I've got - this one here - his old

Rolleiflex from 1958, which when he passed away he kind of left it me.

He built a dark room in the attic of our house, and I'm not sure whether

your viewers know about Heath Robinson, but it was one of those

mad contraptions where there was a ladder on a pulley and you had to

pull down the ladder and the pulley was handmade and the weight was lead

poured into a paint pot. You've got this phrase about liking things that

are childlike but not childish - so the child in you, the playfulness,

that came from your childhood and from you dad, so your dad must have

been fun. Yeah, he was really good fun. He was a trick photographer as

well. He loves silliness. So that was me coming home from school one

day and I was saying, "What's that in the garden, Dad?" and there was a

white sheet from my mum's bed on the washing line that was the back drop,

there were two wooden boxes and then a rug which he'd wired at the edge

in an up and down movement and he said, "Just sit on that and pretend

you're flying, son". And you never questioned it with my dad, so

suddenly you were cross legged and going like this. And a month later,

I am flying above Brighton Pavilion because he put the negatives

together and superimposed them! So from that, he trained my eye, I am

blessed with these eyes. His dad encouraged Paul to be spontaneous

and capture passing moments on film. This is being born in the traffic

jam in Tokyo, going along in a taxi. And then you get a scar.

Today Paul really goes anywhere without his camera. He publishes

snapshots on his Instagram Web page and his photos of all telephones or

a parlour all blogs are as likely to find their way onto his fabric

designs as flowers or stripes. You work together, your friends, too

much like a model. It looks like a photo shoot, I wanted to look like

you are just mates. These days he shoots his own ad campaigns. It's

not that he doesn't trust of the photographers... Just that he knows

what he wants. Head straight, head straight. That's it. And for Paul

Smith, God is always in the details. Look at this jacket, I think it is

from 1997. Very classic, fitted informants jacket. Then inside,

sculptors right per Paul, and it has the pink, purple outside. That's the

thing, something that is classic but this just moved around. I think Paul

Smith came at a time when there was a whole upturn in changing the way

men were looking at clothes. We're not talking about punks, people

really extraordinary lives by people who wanted to go to work wearing a

suit but a bit different. What is it about his character that is embodied

in his clothes? I think Paul really designs everything for himself. I

can see him wearing every single piece here, everything about it was

expressed in the that Ledger jacket, that is Paul Smith. On the outside,

you are sober and sensible, inside, you are bonkers. Which I love! I am

not a common rotational person, -- confrontational person. So I like

clothes that have a personality, our customer is somebody who is quite at

ease with themselves and doesn't need things to draw attention to

themselves, because they have an interesting head. So I always

thought, do something that is acceptable but has that secret. If

you had to describe these contradictions in your work, how

would you describe them? I said to a journalist, I said, I think I'm

between Savile Row and Mr Bean. The tradition, the draughtsmanship --

craftsmanship, the love of good portion, quality, from Savile Row.

And Mr Bean, or... My sound machine! Which I find very useful. I keep it

in case nobody applauds at the end of a fashion show, I bring my own

applause. Tonight, Paul is hosting the launch

of 101, a book of photos by Scott Mitchell of Reggie Wiggins 's

spectacular win in 2012 -- Bradley Wiggins. He has been friends with

Wiggins since the early days of his track racing career. Have I got one

of these? You can have mine. Smith has been a serious cyclist since his

dad bought him his first bike when he was just 11. Hello! Look at this

one. Do you want to lift it? It's so delicious. It's got no wait to it at

all. We had a little boy from the local school, we had 22 children

from the school here, he went up to this one adhesive, you lift it. Then

he said, that's lighter than my sister! Look at that, it's so

beautiful. You only have to look round the office to see Paul 's

passion for cycling, the cycling jerseys, bikes and memorabilia. And

he designed this bike in his trademark pink in 2010 for an -- a

Danish charity. For a cyclist, that's what we like. You really did

want to be a racing cyclist. What happened? Unfortunately, I was out

training, a car and I collided. It was probably my fault, I was with my

head down. I was broken -- I broke lots of bones, was in hospital for

three months. I grew up a lot in that time, because it was awarding

the hospital where they were eight coalminers who died while I was

there. -- award in the hospital. There were motorbike accidents, car

accidents, I think 16 people died while I was in hospital for three

months. So it was a bit growing period for me. When the teenage Paul

Smith left: 15 to become a warehouse assistant, Nottingham was still

dominated by the coal industry. Men dressed like men. And then this

happened. The rock stars of the 1960s

introduced a new male role model. One that didn't dress like a

middle-aged dad. And in 1967, when he met a graduate of the Royal

College of Art from London, and already a mother of two, the young

lad from Beeston really did grow up. So this is a really nice drawing by

a fan from Japan of Pauline and myself, if you look at the back, you

will see that this is from a photograph that was taken of Pauline

and I in the 80s. In Italy, on holiday. It's a really great

picture. So tell me, Pauline, you met her, fell in love with her, she

changed your life completely? She is totally responsible for me being

here now talking to you. She taught me about the importance of quality.

Very much about the way clothes are built, the way clothes are made,

what a dart does, what stitching does, it rolls the lapel, the

importance of how this leave is put in. -- per sleeve. So it was really

correct, the way of making clothes that she taught me, it stood me in

good stead. As part of their exhibition, Hello

my name is Paul Smith, the Design Museum are reconstructing his first

Nottingham shop. All nine square metres of it - barely big enough to

swing a hat in. Do it the same as the jacket.

Paul started out selling clothes designed by Pauline. But in 1976

from a hotel bedroom in Paris, he launched the first Paul Smith

collection. As punk battled it out with glam rock, Smith's traditional

tailoring with a twist carved out a very different masculine silhouette.

Do you recall your first discovery of Paul Smith in the 80s? I remember

walking into a shop in Bath I think around 1979, 1980 and seeing some

clothes that didn't fit into that period of baggies and terrible kind

of ruffs and platform heels. It was a suit which looked like it could

have been made for a demobbed serviceman, but just with a twist. I

didn't know who it was - and then I discovered there was someone called

Paul Smith, it wasn't a label, there really was this guy.

Welcome to the Nottingham Paul Smith HQ today - a square box of a

building in an anonymous suburb - just like its neighbours. Or is it?

If ever a business was created in the image of its maker, this one is.

Here's his staff on the production line, having ideas, making clothes

and distributing them. Or at least Smith's toy town version of it.

Smith's humour and mischief tickles every corner of the business.

Kingdom of boxes, is that what you call it?

He's still loyal to Nottingham, but he's come a long way since that tiny

basement shop. From nine square metres to this. 15,219. It's a huge

warehouse, processing some five million items every year. And yet

Smith's personality is stamped all over it. There's art works on the

walls and unexpected Smithian touches.

I would like to introduce you to my new friend. Either a hairdryer or

alight. Have you ever seen at them like that? There's surprises around

every corner. All of these old pieces of furniture, sourced by

Smith's team, will be used to fit out new shop designs.

What's the strangest thing that's come in here, piece of furniture? I

think the camel takes a lot of beating, to be honest with you. I'm

rather jealous, actually. I'd like the camel in my sitting room. I

noticed a squirrel some time ago. There was a large squirrel, slightly

scary. I like this one. We can have the

glass further back. Furniture from Nottingham eventually

travels to his stores around the world. Every one of the 370 shops

has been individually designed by the in-house team in London.

So is the main question now what the colour of that is?

First on the agenda today is the colours for the glass casing of

their new shop in Shanghai. One of 25 that are due to open in China

over the next five years. That's in addition to shops in Europe, 265 in

Japan and next year, they open their first shop in south America. Yes,

like that, so it looks like it's not just a side but it's actually an

aeroplane. How canny is he commercially? How did he get to be

successful? I think if you're a young boy and you put your money

into a tiny, tiny store in your local town and you have to sell

things to keep going - you have to do an awful lot of Saturdays. He's

obviously kept that, but he can sell, he knows how to sell. He knows

a retailer's detail. He knows all the things that are important. Now

if you look at his collections, there aren't things that you can't

sell. Yes, there may be the odd jacket that stands out, but that

will look great in the window. People are going to go in. They're

being enticed in. He understands about detail. Most of his generation

didn't. All of those British designers who are tremendously

strong in terms of the design and the desire. They were not people who

thought too often about selling the clothes.

In the early 1980s, Paul Smith identified a new kind of customer, a

man that was part dad, part rock star. He was still a bit hairy and

smelly, but maybe he wasn't afraid of carrying a bag or wearing

jewellery. Metrosexual man, I think is what they call him now.

Today that market is huge. Your typical metrosexual has a few quid

in his pocket and he likes to look and smell good. Smith's shops, with

their art works and books, pander to his aspirations. And that's how he

took his retail business to the next level, not just from selling clothes

but from selling a lifestyle. There it is, the Filofax.

For Smith it started in the late 70s when Pauline gave him an unusual new

diary. This is one of the most memorable things about your shop.

But the Filofax, it's difficult to believe it, at the time was such a

modern invention. And basically what it was was a leather wallet and then

all these different components that you can customise for your personal

use. And it was for the army and the clergy and that was it.

But Smith saw the potential to sell this niche product to the customers

who bought his shirts and suits. I thought what do I think would really

work, and it became the Paul Smith package. The diary, the address

book. The various things I thought you should have in them. And I sold

literally, eventually thousands of them. The Filofax took off like

wildfire. Its message was clear. If you didn't have one, you probably

didn't have much of a life. Smith was on the look out for other new

designs that would put his shops ahead of the pack.

When a vacuum cleaner was something you stuffed in a cupboard, Paul

spotted a young British designer whose name would come to rival the

mighty Hoover. Just wanted to show you this. Be careful!

While British distributors couldn't stomach the pastel pinks and purples

of the first bagless Dyson, Smith had a hunch it might just take off.

Why would some sort of cool guy come into a shop and think, oh, yeah,

that's just what I need, a vacuum cleaner. Almost all my customers

were creative people at the time. Film directors, as they are today.

And they just thought of that as an object in their room, rather than as

a vacuum cleaner. I think that was why, and I mean, people just loved

it straightaway. Smith first saw the Dyson during a

trip to Japan in 1986. Before the economic collapse in the early 90s,

the dominant Japanese business model - Keiretzu - was based on principles

of collective efficiency and loyalty. Paul Smith tapped into that

and the more playful side of the Japanese psyche. After all, this was

the land of manga and Godzilla. What about this sort of huge appeal he

has outside the UK. What about this appeal outside of

the EU K, especially in Japan? Japan discovered Paul really very early in

the days where people were still talking about Japan as number one.

It had a booming economy in the 80s. They went shopoing for design around

the world. And most of them took Japan for a ride. Paul didn't. He

went out there, it really excited him. He loved it, he loved that

sense of doing things really well. That sense of ritual and politeness.

And he really took things seriously. They loved him back. You can't just

entertain people. You have obviously got to appeal to them in other ways

as well. In other words, he is a brilliant retailer. The shops make

money and he has been very successful. Where is that true? I

think Paul is brilliant at getting the best out of the best of ordinary

things, making them special. He is fantastic at putting things

together, making things belong. He is a surrealist.

Going to Japan in the 80s, when very few foreigners were going there and

almost nonel of the Paul Smith staff in Japan spoke any English, apart

from schoolboy English. I used to sit through these meetings with jet

lag, quite tired, and just needed an ice breaker. I needed something that

just made it all happen. So one day I just brought out this suitcase and

opened it up and said, I'm bored now, and I'm going to play with my

train set. And they were really shocked. But then the second time I

did it, the second meeting, they were saying to me, Paul, sir, where

is train set? So it worked. So this is what allowed you to break through

in Japan? They could finally see, they finally understood what Paul

Smith was all about. Absolutely. It was sort of this very proper

hard-working approach, but with this light heartedness.

The Mr Bean, Saville Row combo struck a deep chord. Since opening

his first Tokyo shop in 1984, he's become a cult figure in Japan with a

licensing deal and a lucrative chain of 265 stores.

He blazed a trail for other British brands like Burberry and Hunter and

helped to establish Savile Row as the benchmark of British quality.

Smith's eccentric personality and designs have won him a massive fan

base. But never confuse his child-like enthusiasm with

childishness. So how commercial are you? Here you

are, you're incredibly successful still. But you're working in a

commercial business, a very competitive business, the fashion

business. How often do you think to yourself, hang on, Paul, this is

fun, but is this going to make me money? My first shop in Nottingham

was open two days a week and that was this. Purity, no compromise and

then here. Hiding behind the back, was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

Thursday, which was doing anything that came along and also with the

help of Pauline's income to earn money. So I always had that and to

this day, I still have that. So I've got Albermarle Street, I've got

Faubourg St Honore, Los Angeles. Certain shops that are very

beautiful and special and not that commercial. And then I have a very

substantial jeans business and a very successful accessories

business. So even now I'm still doing what I did.

He may not sell self-help books, but Smith's down-to-earth business nous

has grounded him in the air-kissing world of fashion for nearly four

decades. And he's not stopped yet. What you see is what you get, but

don't be fooled. This is no Mr Bean. So you're having fun? That's what

you're really saying. Absolutely, every day is a new beginning. And

you owe that to your dad, you know. I was thinking really of that shot

he did of you on that flying carpet, where you had to go up to the attic

and then he showed you it. I think he was sending you a message,

saying, Paul, anything is possible. Dream on. I think that's true, so

thank you very much, Dad. # These are a few of my favourite things.

# When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad.

# I simply remember my favourite things.