Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A designer who introduced the Filofax and boxer shorts, and revived men's suits. He built an international fashion business from Nottingham.
On the island
Eight records
I just think it's a fantastic record and I like the uh imagine all the people living life in peace. I think that's very good for the nineties.
just because I love it really, I suppose. But, um, he Bob Dylan, when I was first starting out, was so important because he was so rebellious and had this strange voice and protest songs and I don't know, he was just so different.
one of my all-time favourites, followed his career. I think he's probably the simil similar age to me, I'm not sure, but um I like this one because it's got fantastic energy and I think it standing on the beach with a piece of driftwood in my hand I could pretend I was Eric Clapton very easily.
I have a home in Italy now and uh it just reminds me of lovely summers.
Even Better Than the Real Thing
This is a very energetic one. This is U Two, even better than the Real Thing, which is a all my other choices have been from the past, and this one is very much of today. I think they're a fantastic band and lots and lots of energy, and I think they'll make me feel very strong on my desert island.
I suppose it's uh very normal for for somebody my age to choose the Rolling Stones and I have sympathy for the devil. I've just got to have one Rolling Stones on my island.
I just love uh reggae music. In fact, uh this this record reminds me of the time that I had a fashion show in in Paris when for two years I'd had fashion shows that were very typical British and the clothes were all tweedy and uh sort of eccentric but but quite British. And then I put on a fashion show not in a sort of typical interior of Paris which was covered in sort of paintings and things, but it was in a empty concrete art gallery and at the clothes were very bright colours and I played all reggae music and everybody hated it. It was uh so scary, but in fact it went on to being the one of the best selling collections ever, but it was so radical and it's something that I daren't uh repeat. It was very frightening. But I love the music anyway.
Queen of the SlipstreamFavourite
I just think he's uh fantastic and he's helped me round the world many, many times. I travel the world a lot on my own and um on my little headphones. He's got me round the world. I've only heard this one about eighteen thousand times, so I suppose I can live with it on a desert island.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:29How involved are you with the day-to-day running of the shops?
Well, not any more, no, because I've set up a sort of structure now and I've got managers in place. But in the early days, I mean, I literally did a absolutely everything, you know, from packing the boxes, unpacking the boxes, serving, doing the windows, everything. … I love it, that's the best bit.
Presenter asks
2:01Why have you said no to takeover bids?
I like being my emboss, and I think it's very important in design, especially to be d design led and not be led by the the bottom line, you know, the profits and have the shareholders looking over your shoulders. Very dangerous.
Presenter asks
3:58How would you describe the Paul Smith look to someone who'd never seen it?
Easy to wear, no problem clothes, really. I mean, cl if you actually lay a Paulsmith's collection of clothes out on the floor, they all stand up individually. You can add them to your wardrobe. A lot of designers, in my opinion, over design, put too much onto the garments. And what I try to do is keep really, really simple. And I'm very happy that a Paulsmith jacket is put with some of your grandfather's trousers and some shoes from a thrift shop. … It was described in the early eighties as classic with a twist and I think that's something that's got overused, but it probably describes it the best.
The keepsakes
The book
I just think it's silly, it makes me laugh, uh it's The drawings are great and uh it's to do with youth. And I wouldn't read a book anyway.
The luxury
Because of my busy head, I need a notebook with a pencil with it, please. ... I just have so many ideas all the time that I've probably got one in my pocket right now somewhere. ... I can't draw, but I can make notes. I can sort of draw. Sort of. But it's it's to do with notes. I've always got a little orange book in my pocket and um ... My whole collection is is done by words and by s funny little drawings and I'd have to have a a notebook outside. I just that would be awful.
Presenter asks
5:30How did you first come across the Filofax?
Um a friend of mine had one and he just bought it from a sort of small stationery shop in in London somewhere and uh I just thought it was marvellous and Pauline bought me one and then eventually we managed to track down the the maker who was uh hidden under some railway arches in the east end of London and it was just one man and one lady running this extremely dusty office with one light bulb and I always remember ringing them up. The company was called Norman and Hill, I don't think it exists at all any more. And that the voice on the phone just sort of summed it up. Norman and Hill. No expression, no enthusiasm. I mean it was a a s sort of sad old company that didn't realize they just had such an absolutely totally wonderful, well thought out product.
Presenter asks
12:07Tell me about Pauline – how did she change your life?
Yeah, I was working in in a shop in Nottingham and uh I met Pauline and um twenty five years later we're still uh together. … She taught me everything I know. Her background was from the Royal College of Art as a trained as a designer, so therefore um In those days it was very much to do with couture fashion, very beautifully made, well proportioned, good quality. And I think that's really w one of the reasons why I'm so successful is because so many of our English designers unfortunately don't put enough importance on quality and cut and simplicity. They put more on uh design, on the seven zips or four pockets and um and she didn't do that.
Presenter asks
16:50What is it about Paul Smith that appeals to the Japanese market?
Uh I suppose the Englishness uh and well without being too big-headed about it, I think a lot of it is to do with the fact that I've literally been there every year since I started uh in 1984. I mean I visited in'82, but we opened the first shop in 84 and I've just been every year, two or three times a year, met the people, trained everybody there personally, and I s I think they've got a real Paul Smith, and so it's a combination of the the clothes, of course, and uh hopefully my way of working.
“I like being my emboss, and I think it's very important in design, especially to be d design led and not be led by the the bottom line, you know, the profits and have the shareholders looking over your shoulders. Very dangerous.”
“Easy to wear, no problem clothes, really. I mean, cl if you actually lay a Paulsmith's collection of clothes out on the floor, they all stand up individually. You can add them to your wardrobe. A lot of designers, in my opinion, over design, put too much onto the garments. And what I try to do is keep really, really simple.”
“She taught me everything I know. Her background was from the Royal College of Art as a trained as a designer, so therefore um In those days it was very much to do with couture fashion, very beautifully made, well proportioned, good quality. And I think that's really w one of the reasons why I'm so successful is because so many of our English designers unfortunately don't put enough importance on quality and cut and simplicity.”
“I hope I wasn't too much a sort of 80s man because I don't think of myself as an eighties man. I mean the file facts I happened to find, but what happened to it after that was not good, I don't think. And I wasn't happy with the big bang and I wasn't happy with the greed of the eighties. I was appalled by it.”
“The ideas are the easy things. It's uh it's making them work that's the hard thing, which goes back to my worry about the the industry of uh in this country. I think the ideas we have in this country. I I was told somewhere that uh fifty five percent of the the world's most innovative ideas come from this country, and when it actually comes to putting them into practice it's three percent or something.”
“I just think it's silly, it makes me laugh, uh it's The drawings are great and uh it's to do with youth. And I wouldn't read a book anyway.”