Paul Smith is known for his creative spirit and combining tradition and modernity. He has an innovative use of traditional craftsmanship and cutting edge design.
His first shop was called Paul Smith Vetements Pour L'Homme which opened in 1970 in Nottingham and was only open fridays and saturdays because he needed to support the shop with freelance jobs.
"Ideas can come from anywhere. You can take inspiration from anything."
He is constantly filling notebooks with sketches and always carries a camera to take photos.
On his travels he picks up many things from across the world. His office is in Covent Garden, London.
Design is not magically done but colours can come from anything you see. He visits places for one day at a time and would cram lots in one day rather than spend a long time visiting now thing.
" Don't spend too much time looking at what other people do."
Designs can be developed from photos and inspiration you have gathered.
"Be Yourself."
Street markets are a big source of inspiration for him and provide lots of colour inspiration.
His wife Pauline studied Fashion at the Royal College of arts, and has helped all this happen.
At his first show, only one person placed an order but rather than seeing this a negative thing, he saw it was the beginning.
Colour is important, this can mean printing things in unexpected colours to achieve new things.
He develops the signature colour stripes by winding yarn around cardboard to select which colours.
He has a archive of sketches, colour ways and diagrams of garments. They have so many colour swatches from pantone and yarn samples.
The studio contains references including archives of historic fabric samples and sketches, design books and fabric libraries.
This was a very memorable and enjoyable visit. I didn't realise until this exhibition how similar Paul Smith's thoughts and inspirations are to myself.
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