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How colourful stripes (and rubber chickens) helped Paul Smith conquer the fashion world - Published Sir Paul Smith, the doyen of British fashion, is flailing around in his office with two large rubber chickens and making them squeak them with gusto. "The chickens are the reason I was successful in Japan," he explains. "I've been working in Japan since 1982. And when I first went there, there was one person who spoke schoolboy English. So, it was very much about communicating through gesture, drawings, but also humour." Enter the rubber chickens. "So, if I was a bit tired at four o'clock in the afternoon, I used to just go into my bag and go..." He demonstrates another squeak. "And then everybody collapsed with laughter." It certainly did the trick. Almost 45 years, later there are more than 20 Paul Smith stores in Japan, part of a global empire spanning 50 countries. Sir Paul has invited BBC News to spend an afternoon with him at his London HQ to talk about his new autobiography Threads: My Life in Style. First, he is showing us what he jokingly calls his "minimalist executive suite" where he is surrounded by huge piles of gifts and curiosities, which he is sent every day by fans. "For about 45 years, I've been receiving interesting things from a fan in America, and this is one of the latest ones," he says gesturing to a plastic goose covered in stamps with his address written on the side - continuing the plastic poultry theme. "They always arrive without a box and there's no message so we're not really sure who they're from." He picks out a few more favourites from what looks like the most jumbled of jumble sales, including a clockwork toy drummer, nativity scenes made out of nuts, and the bike Chris Froome won the Tour De France on. And every morning, after his 0530 swim, he writes a thank you postcard to everyone who has included an address. "Good manners is really important in business, especially for longevity," he reflects. In many ways, this scene is a perfect example of what has made Sir Paul Smith's career such a stellar one - it represents his enthusiasm for life, combined with his knowledge of what is needed to succeed. These are themes which he investigates in Threads, which tells the tale of how his ambitions to be a professional cyclist were ended by a crash at the age of 17, leading him to explore the world of fashion. He opened his first shop - a tiny, windowless store in Nottingham - in 1970. "The first day I took £38, and my dear lovely wife bought most of it just to please me," he recalls. The decision to write the book was partly inspired by turning 80 and wanting to pass on advice to those wanting to follow him into fashion. "I get so many students here, they think, 'I need a fashion show, two shops, a million pounds and everything'. But if you're patient, you can grow slowly and carefully. And that's what I did." More than five decades on from opening his first store, Sir Paul's company has become one of the leading British fashion brands, known for its signature stripes and colourful twists on traditional British tailoring. Thankfully, the book also does not shy away from some serious A-list name-dropping. It turns out that when George Best went missing when he was supposed to be playing for Manchester United, he was often in Sir Paul's spare bedroom. The unlikely pair met in the early 70s when Best had a line of children's clothes and Sir Paul worked for the company which designed them. "George famously used to get quite stressed out because he was the first superstar footballer and there was a lot of so-called friends that weren't really friends," he explains. "On a Friday, often he would just start to get a bit disturbed. I was sent off in the company's Rolls Royce, with my long hair and velvet trousers to Heathrow VIP area to collect him and then take him to the flat so he could escape for the weekend." "And I don't know anything about football, so we got on really like a house on fire. He said to me, 'Nobody's ever talked to me like this'. We used to have fish and chips." Music also features heavily, from the time Sir Paul McCartney made him a cheese sandwich after a soundcheck at the Hammersmith Apollo, through to being friends with David Bowie from the 80s. "He was very inquisitive. He used to call me Smithy. He used say, 'Smithy, why have you got that book? What's that there?' He was a very curious man." And things came full circle when Sir Paul was commissioned to design a T-shirt to accompany Bowie's final album Black Star. "I had a hint he was ill because he was in Switzerland a lot," he reveals. "So, we lost him for a while." For those who heard Sir Paul Smith on Desert Island Discs in 1992 it may be a surprise that he has written a book at all. When asked to pick his book, he told presenter Sue Lawley: "I have to admit that I'm not a reader at all, because I've got this very, very busy mind and it just leaps around all the time and I just can't hold a book for any length of time." He opted for the 1974 Beano Annual, because it had "16 pages of Roger the Dodger". In Threads, he explains that he is dyslexic and it was undiagnosed throughout his school days. "It hasn't impacted me at all. I just can't read very well," he explains. "So when I do talks, which I do quite a lot, I just do it out of my head and hope it sounds all right." Next on the tour we are shown how his famous stripe designs are created by using thread. They first appeared as part of Paul Smith's spring 1992 range, but customer demand quickly led to them coming back. "Eventually you think, oh, how many more combinations of a stripe can I do?" he admits, before adding, "But so far so good." Stretching "so far" to 35 years, shows just how much "good" those stipes have brought him. Before leaving, Sir Paul shows us all four storeys of his art wall which wraps around the main staircase (framed pictures, mementos, newspaper cuttings and photos from all aspects of his life) before emerging onto a rooftop garden. Then finally a walk to the Paul Smith flagship store in Floral Street, where the man with his name on the sign, still tries to work on the floor for a few hours every week. "They always claim I'm the best salesman," he laughs. "I have a knowledge about the product, because I designed it, and so I can talk about it." It is great fun watching as customers slowly realise (some with a bit of prompting) that they are talking to THE Paul Smith, with reactions ranging from "I've been shopping here since the 1980s","I love your glasses," to "at least I know you are real and not AI". Finally, it seemed appropriate to round things off by ending where we started, with a gift. I had a specially chosen one for him. As he unwraps it a huge beam of a smile emerges over his face when he realises, he now has a copy of his Desert Island Discs book choice – The 1974 Beano Annual. "I haven't got it," he beams. "I mean that's class. Brilliant." Sir Paul Smith says goodbye and heads off back towards his HQ, walking through the sunny streets of Covent Garden with a Beano annual tucked under his arm – a fashion icon who knows all about fun. Threads: My Life in Style by Sir Paul Smith is published on 10 September Related topics - Published12 January 2022 - Published31 August - Published31 August
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