Paul Smith regularly draws inspiration from his travels, but for his latest collection, shown in Paris on Wednesday afternoon, he stayed a little closer to home.
The amateur photography collection of his father, Harold B. Smith, was his starting point. Guests entered the space through a mock darkroom outfitted with buckets of emulsion, hanging film negatives, and a stainless steel sink. A booklet featuring some of the work of Smith Senior, a founder member of the Beeston Camera Club in Nottinghamshire, was left on each seat.
Instead of the standard catwalk show, models walked out in groups of three while Smith talked through each look. This intimate approach contrasts sharply with the oversized glasses that have become the standard in luxury fashion. At Smith’s meeting, the guest list hovered around 200 people. in Louis Vuitton the night beforeThere were approximately 2,000.
“We’re not one of the big groups, so what can you do,” he mused backstage when asked about his style. “An asset is a human who can chat about things.”
And chat is a verb. Smith may be just two years away from his 80th birthday, but he shows no signs of turning the corner. Instead, he was excitedly jumping over fabrics, cuts, the line on a glove, the height of a shoe, and his father’s messy drawings that he used as prints on knitwear and tailoring.
At one point, he pulled a toy mooing cow from the bag. And in another photo, a plastic egg from the shoe – his signature cool puffy grey, adding to the mad professor vibe. This was British eccentricity at its finest, only exacerbated by some slightly bemused French editors who remained poker-faced throughout.
Smith stated that his father was a committed man, often catching “little moments that others would have missed.” This gene appears to have been passed on to Smith Jr.
He is a stickler for detail, even regarding elements that cannot be seen. The corduroy trousers were printed on the inside for a vintage effect, while the linings of the jackets featured puff prints of his father’s photographic negatives. His ties and shirts are styled in matching fabrics, a trick he picked up from his photographer friend David Bailey, who originally learned the technique from his time in the Royal Air Force.
While these garments were designed for the modern man, Smith used traditional techniques and fabrics to ensure they stand the test of time. Some trousers were made of thorn-resistant tweed, originally designed for hunters to withstand brambles. The upcoming collaboration with Barbour includes a playful twist on its signature jackets, while the detachable hoods can be mixed and matched.
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He also delved into his own archive. The satsuma orange and plum knit sweaters were inspired by the slim fit jackets he used to dress clients including David Bowie during the 1970s. At the time, he couldn’t afford to have them made, so he instead used to buy sweaters from the student section of his local department store.
While the mood in the room was buoyant, it was a difficult time for the brand, between Brexit, Covid, and the war in Ukraine (Smith closed his company Russian stores in 2023) and the loss of tax-free shopping for tourists. It has suffered five consecutive years of losses Latest numbers It shows a pre-tax loss of £5.3m for the 12 months to 30 June 2024, compared to a loss of £2.3m in the previous year.
