Paul Smith (Q1960)
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British fashion house
- Paul Smith
- Paul Smith Limited
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
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| English | Paul Smith |
British fashion house |
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Statements
5 references
“This is all live. I’m scared stiff!” So said Paul Smith as he presented his mainline collection at Pitti Uomo for the first time in 31 years this afternoon. We were in the golden renaissance-revival splendor of Villa Favard, part of the Polimoda fashion school. Smith presented the collection in a semi-trunk show, semi-lecture format. A small group of models came in and out as Smith ran us through the 16 looks they were wearing.Despite his protestations Smith delivered a smooth and almost professorially accomplished commentary. He casually dropped some definitive asides on intarsia knits and wool fresco (“it’s quite an interesting yarn”) while holding forth on a collection he reported was loosely based on his formative experiences in the fleshpots of 1960s Soho in London.Prominently lapelled shirts and petite kipper ties were printed with a jumble of Florentine icons peppered with nods to Soho, while Smith’s podium was a jumble of artists’ easels. The period he was referencing was famous for the louche shenanigans of Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, and other brush-wielding habitués of Muriel Belcher’s bohemian dive bar, the Colony Room. White-painted shoes and a great linen smock shirt revived from a 1979 Smith collection illustrated this, as did Smith’s Freudian styling of tailored jacket over carpenter’s pants (part of a handsome collaboration with Lee). There was a grip bag designed to be soft and flexible enough to carry your portfolio in.Smith himself was more interested in jazz than art as a youngster—he saw Miles Davis and Georgie Fame play The Flamingo Club—and here delivered some consummate improvisation over menswear standards via the specially embroidered shawl collar evening wear pieces he reported were especially in demand at his famously pink Los Angeles outpost. Jazzily toned outerwear—a turquoise field jacket, a yellow Harrington—created vivid punctuation marks against the colored scramble of checked trenches and striped shirts that were new interpretations of Smith’s house stripes. This was a lesson in expertly modulated menswear achieved through arranging the forces of informal bohemianism, workwear, and tailored propriety alongside each other in a triptych of harmonic opposition: cool.
11 June 2024
As we checked over his board during the preshow hubbub, Paul Smith told a story: “I think it was in ’81. Paul McCartney said to me that he wanted some clothes. So I went to the Hammersmith Odeon, where he was doing a sound check, and laid them all out— about 10 outfits—on the floor. He came offstage and came over, and I said: ‘I’ve laid them all out like they’re a collection, but the good thing is that when you take the outfits apart, they’re all just nice clothes.’ And he went: ‘That’s fantastic. I’ll take them! Do you want a cheese sandwich?’ And he made me a cheese sandwich.” Also, added Smith, “that was about a five-grand order.”Smith wasn’t just boasting about his capacity for impromptu cheese sandwiches. We were discussing clothes you want to wear, pieces to repeat. Commercial might be considered a déclassé fashion quality in some quarters, but that’s a stupid approach to what, at the end of the day, is a business. Today this old master delivered a highly commercial collection of menswear whose very thoughtful flourishes of artistry were exactly what made it so appealingly distinct.Details you wanted to exhibit on yourself included ’70s sneakers with crepe soles; back-belted jackets with inverted pleats running down the spine (a little old-school Neapolitan); liner gilets with solarized photo-print patterning; and coats in Huddersfield-spun gabardine. There was a conscious queasiness to a color palette that included a lurid lime and winey purple. Mixed with those occasional pattern accents (and a tight striped twinset), it knowingly recalled that cusp of the ’70s and ’80s high point of decorative decadence before the switch flicked to modernist chrome and hard surfaces.The styling by Julian Ganio was typically deft, laying different garments’ complementary aspects against each other in tightly scripted wearable sentences. But you could also happily see yourself editing it too, by picking up specific pieces from the collection— favorites from this corner included the reversible piped shearling, the evening jacket in dark green with a large-bellied shawl collar, and the violet liner jacket with matching Japanese-style tool sling—and then wearing them out with great satisfaction alongside your existing wardrobe.
19 January 2024
As the first look came out we heard the unmistakable (if you’re old) “wah wah b-ding DING” twang of a dial-up connection being established. Paul Smith said his team had been rooting through his warehouse’s worth of archives in Nottingham—analog Googling—and in part this collection was the result of that. It connected shapes and styles that spanned three 30-year distant decades: the ’60s, the ’90s, and now the ’20s.“Basically,” said Smith: “I was rethinking the suit…the poor old suit has quite a bad image; funerals, job interviews, financial guys, court appearances. But I think about it in a different way.” Using mostly British fabrics, Smith played Jenga with the traditional ensemble approach to suiting by subtracting jacket, shirt, and tie to leave just pants and waistcoat. As at Givenchy yesterday, this created an almost sporty silhouette, pared down and body-conscious. Elsewhere two models, one wearing a pale blue single breasted under a blue check raincoat, the other a mod-collar gray double breasted over a putty pink shirt and spotted tie, both carried their pants instead of wearing them to best show off boxer shorts made of shirting and suiting fabrics. Some of the suiting was cut in two-tone tonic fabric whose iridescent colors shifted according to the angle of the runway lighting and your eye. Others came in high twist lightweight wool Fresco.Old school sneakers—inspired by physical training shoes from days of yore—were gridded with round perforations in honor of the Jacques Anquetil cycling shoes Smith used to wear as a young shaver. So too were the breezy oxfords that, along with closed-upper loafers with seamed toes, were variously worn south of the suiting. Some models wore cycling caps strapped to D-rings on their right hips. One waistcoat-only look was overprinted with a photo of morning light streaming through Venetian blinds that Smith had taken while having a lie-in.The second half of the collection shifted beyond suiting—without phasing it out—to embrace military and workwear-informed looks that were in part inspired by David Lean’sLawrence of Arabia. The crepe soled suede monk strap desert boots were lovely in multiple colors, worn before roomy desert fatigues with cinching strapping. American-inspired workwear jackets were top-stitched with zig zag reinforcements and a great silk-mix tattersall check two-piece set came with an angled biker style pocket on the left pectoral.
The closing prints were a blended collage of motifs from previous seasons, a literal articulation of Smith and his team’s mining of the past in order to recut and polish menswear jewels for the present.
23 June 2023
A shopkeeper to his core, Paul Smith still spends part of most Saturdays in one of his London stores taking the pulse of his customers’ needs and wants. “As you know very well, we philosophize about our collections, saying they’re inspired by this trip or that artist or whatever it may be,” the designer explained. “But customers are not looking for philosophy; they might say ‘I need a new jacket for this reason,’ or ‘I’m looking for something I don’t have in my wardrobe,’ or ‘I want something that’s easy to wear and looks good.’”That’s not to say there wasn’t a cross-disciplinary spiel behind this womenswear collection – the press notes said “modernist architecture” – but Smith preferred to focus on the pragmatic appeal of his ensembles as we looked through them together. He put a strong bet on a monochrome houndstooth check suit with a strong shoulder, boot-cut pant, high-skirted jacket, and interestingly twisted asymmetrical double-breasted closure. The high satin-revere jackets and black skirts with uneven hems were, he reasonably posited, effectively easeful variations of Le Smoking.Womenswear represents around 25 per cent of Smith’s sales, so as well as the ecological sense in the recycled and wool that made up much of this collection, there was also a creatively sustainable reason in carrying over multiple fabrications from menswear. These included the rug-inspired knit jacquards and tailoring checks, as well as fresh variations of the Mulberry bag collaboration first trailed on his menswear runway in January. Nubbily-marled lilac cardigan knit tracksuits, and silk draped dresses and shirt-dresses were womens-specific, as was a pink silk shirt with a buttonable slash in each sleeve. “In the end what people want is attractive, interesting and easy to wear clothes,” said Smith. He’s not wrong.
8 March 2023
For the first time in many moons, Paul Smith was not suited and booted as he took his bow today. Instead of his usual fully constructed tailored jacket and two-piece down-below partner, he wore a handsome zip-up straight-dropping blouson in a navy Loro Piana wool, and some red-on-blue patterned check pants. Was he OK? “I wore this because of the show,” he explained: “Tailoring is not only the suit—of which of course we have many—but today we are looking at using exclusive tailoring fabrics made in a workwear style. It’s a form of modern tailoring.”Smith started with a black suit whose composite parts were traced by white top stitching, in order to display what he was about to unpick. There was a consistent display of high-lapeled, slim-fitting coats that were similarly akin to mod, Teddy, carpenter and even doctor’s jackets, worn with matching pants. That modern staple, the puffa, was presented as a side-vented over-layer, longer at the back, and covered in moire or check. A more voluminous, semi-cloaked version was clad in a trad-looking check that Smith said had full technical specs, weather-resistance wise. With a changed neckline, now round, Smith returned to chew over last season's side-attached sleeveless layer, a fresh version of the waistcoat or its even more venerable predecessor, the tabard. Layered under those long jackets these had the same look as sweatshirts with none of the bulk. The same shape was repeated in a cherry and lilac mixed yarn knit top worn above some burgundy-ish burnished leather pants, which two looks later were pursued by a ravishing outerwear equivalent in shearling, before another knit mid layer in house stripe.Velveteen pants—something Smith had not ventured towards since his earliest, rock’n’roll days—a fine collaboration with Mulberry and an ironic conversation between scarves and ties were other aspects of this attractive collection. The closing check trench, oversized, was a wrap.
20 January 2023
First slightly late for this showroom appointment (absolutely nowhere nearby functioning to park my Lime bike), and secondlywayyylater with the review (as live show madness and other insanities took over), this review duly starts with a double-apology to Paul Smith. “The collection is based around the idea of holding on to the idea of the summer, but putting on a suit over it,” said the designer down a patchy video call from London to his showroom on Rue Des Archives.That feeling of summery anticipation spiked by the cloud cover of dutiful obligation was nicely expressed across a collection that was rich in Smith’s signature tailoring—France is a key market for his sartorial womenswear, incidentally—brightened up by ombre striping and richly colors in lining and cloth. A sleeveless double-breasted jacket with prominently built shoulders in a Tuscan ochre was matched with a same-color silk shirt and Smith’s hip-skimming breaky pants. Pale evening suits with black lapels came nipped at the waist and were vaguely Bowie-reminiscent.Smith said he had developed a conceptual feminine cousin to the three-piece suit in looks that combined satin shirt, bustier, and those flattering pants. Mens’ shirting was lengthened at the yoke, deconstructed at the collar, and transformed into breezy dresses, some decorated with variations of postmodern pinstriping. This was also deployed in lurex in his signature multi-hued colorways on a fitted knit dress. Trenches were oversized and trimmed in leather. Probably my favorite pieces were the airbrushed cloud-print shirts and rib tank tops, which were fine figurative reflections of the languid but elevated state of mind, containing both light and shade, that Smith was exploring this season.
6 October 2022
“The suit used to equal a job interview or a formal occasion. But now the suit is cool, especially for our young customers. They’re desperate to wear suits, which is wonderful.” So said Paul Smith, immediately following this first runway-with-audience show he’s shown since the Sweatpants Years. An astute interrogator fromEsquireasked: “Do you think fashion needed a break from suits to come back to them in a different way?” Smith replied: “I think that’s true. And I think what else is interesting is that people have rejected the sloppy look very, very quickly. I feel blessed that after 50 years twenty-something percent of people who come on our website are 18-20 year olds.”As you can probably glean, Smith had suits on his mind. This collection was full of them. But before you swipe in whatever direction leads to the next designer, hold up. For these were suits as we have not quite ever seen them before.What Smith did was look at the traditional three piece suit—jacket, pants, and now much-overlooked waistcoat—and gave that third element a fresh appraisal. He then replaced it with a v-necked tabard-vest-hybrid, basically the same shape as a chest rig but without the rigging. This subtly transformed the aspect of the ’80s touched foundational pieces that he placed around them, and was variously shown worn on its own under a jacket, under a jacket and above a collared shirt, or as a piece of light outerwear in itself. It was also inserted into short-suits, which Smith said would always go on sale alongside an equivalent pant for the sake of flexibility.It was such a simple and effective idea that you wondered why nobody had done it before, until Smith airily noted that he had once proposed a similar variation so long ago that he couldn’t remember exactly when. Other fine touches were kangaroo pocket rain parkas in treated shirting cotton, cut-out beef roll loafers, a tropical futurist print that was layered in both jacquard and print on knitwear, and some radiant spray paint effects on suiting, outerwear, and the polarized sunrise and sunset sweaters that opened and closed this show. Suit up.
24 June 2022
“Modern wearable clothes,” said Paul Smith of the collection presented in his Rue des Archives HQ with a minimum of ceremony or contextual gesturing. “What I like most about what we’ve done is that it’s not done to a strong theme,” he said. “It’s very modern clothes that you can add to your existing wardrobe—that’s it. We haven’t done a show because we don’t think doing a show is relevant to us right now.”Smith’s womenswear line was founded in 1995 and, he reckons, today contributes about 25 per cent of his company’s revenues. “You can blame Grace Coddington,” he said. “We began womenswear after she began using so much of the menswear on the supermodels. And from the beginning Paul Smith women’s was always about tailoring.”At this point we were standing by a double-breasted suit cut in a gabardine that looked much more teal in person than in the look book, where it appeared bluer. Smith highlighted what he called the “half moon pad” inserted to give the shoulder line extra presence without making the wearer look like a quarterback. This, along with a waisted cut and longer skirt, delivered an oversize silhouette without swamping the frame entirely: “it’s about respecting the female form,” he said. This same approach was visible in a lavender tuxedo suit, a pink cashmere corduroy suit, and versions of the teal/blue double-breasted cut in a houndstooth that failed to make the look book and a check that did.Beyond that tailoring core were shirts, pants and skirts in solarized, placed prints and knits and jackets patterned or embroidered in zigzag stripes. Also present were an unpretentiously attractive reverse shearling overcoat and cycling jersey-inspired base layers in Lurex-touched versions of the house’s signature stripe. All of these elements were adapted carry-overs from January’s art-house cinema inflected menswear collection, but this time round Smith opted to prioritize the clothing line over that plotline—and the clothes stood up to the scrutiny.
3 March 2022
To shape this new collection and avoid unnecessary social interactions while he was at it, Paul Smith re-watched some of the New Wave and art house movies he first saw when a lad in Nottingham. Unwittingly, this proved to be extra-apposite for a show that had been planned for an IRL audience but ended up exclusively on screen. Backstage, Sir Paul explained that the photo-print of the season, named “Starlet”, was inspired by avant-garde movie posters, its different tonal renderings a nod to La Nouvelle Vague’s vogue for expressing experimentalism through lens filters.Yet despite some specifically starry and cinematic references—a magnificent pair of inverted-pleat wool pants recalling one Smith once made for David Bowie and a multi-pocketed, micro-gingham “director’s jacket”—this was not a collection designed as costume. Blurred florals and vivid zigzags created visual texture on materials that offered satisfying tactility, too: powdery cashmere corduroy, fluffy mohair, crispy recycled nylon and super-soft gabardine. The ensemble of outerwear included a leather-shouldered check wool duffle coat, a powerfully blue gingham mac, a zigzag paneled padded commuter’s coat, and a handsomely burnished leather caban. Notable supporting performances were delivered by the generously collared turtleneck—an item that is rapidly graduating from understudy to lead when it comes to casting about for a modern substitute for the shirt/jacket hybrid (known as the shacket), and is rapidly emerging as a mid-layer of choice for tailoring refuseniks. For those who hold the flame, there was, of course, fine tailoring in abundance. An excellent new runner-style sneaker featuring a transparent side-panel for statement sock-baring and crepe-soled monk straps were enticing footwear extras.“So much of what we’re doing is sticking to our roots. But we’re softening everything in order to adapt to how you’d want to wear it today,” said Smith. Softest of all were the oversized cashmere knits, handmade in Scotland. Smith’s formula sounds simple, but expressing heritage progressively and so unpretentiously requires great sophistication.
21 January 2022
Balenciaga, Balmain, Cardin, Chanel, Courrèges, Lanvin, and Yves Saint Laurent: In the 1960s, Paul Smith saw couture presentations by all these houses and more when he visited Paris with his wife, Pauline, who was then a lecturer in fashion. Today, Smith reprised elements of the mid-century couture presentation format, but—bien sûr—with a twist. The location was his magnificent French HQ, the 17th-century Hotel de Montescot in Le Marais, which is the base for 35 Smith employees. And that twist was a pre-presentation three-song performance byAnaiis(wearing look 22’s striped knit dress), accompanied on the guitar by Luigie Nuñez. As she sang, the sun cut through what had previously been an exclusively cloudy sky, and it was lovely.When the models came out, they were not holding numbers, proper old-school style, but Smith did talk us through the looks he’d selected to best present the collection. Of look 3’s excellent pants, for instance, he observed: “The shape around the waist has been kept slimmer, and I’ve put the volume in the trouser itself, so that it is very flattering to wear.” This was paired with a button-up knit polo over a cycling shirt, of which there were a fair few in a collection Smith said in a preview was “really all about putting ‘inappropriate’ things together.”As with this season’smenswearcollection, much of the color and decoration was directly drawn from Smith’s happy place, the area around Lucca in Tuscany where he has summered for many years. The chief motif was the sunflower, fields of which patchwork the landscape midsummer, and which brightened many pieces here including a triple-printed shirt and skirt. A simple and utterly alluring striped viscose seersucker pants and shirt combo—work pajamas you would happily wear to the office—as well as Smith’s usual strong suit in suiting (especially a great closing tuxedo and a check suit with a cleanly flat-backed cut) provided other highlights. During his chat, Smith stressed that many of the materials used were either recycled, recyclable, traceable—or, indeed all three. As for the mode of presentation, Smith added: “I thought it was really nice after the horror of Covid and of not seeing each other, to have a personal presentation and to be face to face.” This was something his audience, which was both masked and small, clearly appreciated.
Pre-show Smith also noted that while customers are still cautious about shopping IRL, he expects his company’s sales and revenues to return to 2019 levels by November. This made us reflect on 2020’s lockdown utopia talk, of which he said: “It’s interesting. Last year Mr. Armani and Dries and many others were saying we need to realign with the seasons, or only do two collections a year, and not have so many markdowns. And we agreed with it. But it doesn’t seem to me that it’s turning into reality.” For those who are inclined towards mindful fashion consumption—buying less and buying better—Smith is an ideal source of clothes for all seasons and many of them.
3 October 2021
Speaking down the landline(!) from London, Sir Paul Smith said with relish that he hopes to return to his house near Lucca, Tuscany, for the first time since you-know-what sometime in the next few weeks. One fly in the ointment, however, is that Italy has quite reasonably responded to the rocketing numbers of Delta variant infections in Great Britain by imposing a five-day quarantine on incomers (while, in characteristically myopic Little Englander fashion, the U.K. continues to maintain its 10-day quarantine on incomers from Italy, where the current infection rate is by comparison negligible).Judging from this collection, which was significantly inspired by Smith’s much-missed Tuscan sanctuary, spending five days banged up in his abode would be a travail easily borne. Inspired by the outdoor vistas and colors of Tuscany, but not designed exclusively to be worn outdoors (“it’s not a hunting, shooting, fishing collection”), it was more a landscape of garments. A parka and half-zip were photo-printed with clouds, a stripe-edged cycling jersey with leaves, and short-sleeved shirting and intarsia knitwear were decorated by the light-chasing sunflowers that fill so many Tuscan fields.The color palette progressed from the lemony yellow of morning sunshine through the ochre, terracotta red of Tuscan brickwork, into the sky blue of an endless afternoon and then—via violently sunset magnolia-to-pink—an eventual inky black. Other holiday references included the sailing stitch used to fashion Look 31’s blue parka (worn north of the returning Smith four-seam pant); those cycling jerseys (one, Smith-striped, was worn beneath a windowpane check safari suit in Loro Piana fabric); and a white and slubby linen/cotton fisherman’s jacket (and matching hat) near the top.Sir Paul said that despite the usual reports of its imminent demise, his suiting business remains brisk— “it’s all the weddings!”—and here the tailoring was tolerantly unstructured, one-and-a-half-breasted and especially lovely in solar flare orange. Less eye-catching but as bracing to wear was the high lapeled cocktail of safari and lounge suit in Look 15. One final powerful argument for travel in this collection was made via a collaboration with Porter, whose leading luminary, “Katsu” Yoshida, was instrumental in Smith’s earliest Japanese breakthrough back in the 1980s. Whether in Smithy-stripe or purely Porterish fabrications, they were bags that demanded to be packed.
25 June 2021
This Paul Smith womenswear proposition was a traveling-without-moving whistle-stop tour of wearable subcultural styles that spanned decades but was built for the immediate future. As Smith and his team did for its brother menswear collection presented back in January, here they had toured his vast and seemingly chaotic trove of designs and memorabilia: He seemed chuffed at the impact this had on the youngsters. “They’ll come back and say they’ve got goosebumps about a piece from the ’80s or ’90s. And of course, immediately in my head I’ll reject it, thinking ‘Well, I’ve done that before.’ And they go ‘But Paul, it’s fantastic.’ ”Sometimes it takes fresh eyes to see clothes anew. The severe Mod suiting, bags cut loose to flap with Northern Soul backdrop, kick or shuffle, plus distorted photo prints and non-traditionally colored traditionally patterned fabrics, could all claim cameo roles in Paul Smith’s past. Yet even if you knew diddly about that provenance, their promotion to now seemed merited. Half-and-half cardigans against school stripe skirts played grunge against prep. A bias-cut dress in bird-silhouette silk Hawaiian print contrasted with panel-legged houndstooth suiting inspired by a Smith look once favored by pan-gender pioneer David Bowie. Some pieces were direct parallels with the menswear collection, including the lovely padded mac in Look 5; those cardigans; and the closing look’s distorted floral overcoat. A boucle blouson or Look 7’s smashing orangey red leather overcoat were all-womenswear—but could be gleefully half-inched by any Smith-appreciating geezer.Smith reckons that come fall/winter time, we’ll be both itching and at liberty to slip on fresh glad rags and mingle. In this collection he presented multiple pieces whose acquaintance it would be fantastic to make, first time around or not.
3 March 2021
As well as his genetic identity and his love of photography, Paul Smith inherited from his father, Harold, a gray suit. “It stands up on its own! It’s bullet-proof!” he said. “Phoebe Philo or Jil Sander would love it, it’s in the same type of fabric they often used to work with.” For this collection Smith reconsidered what he’s handed down to us, his customers, over his 51 years in the business.Appropriately styled by Julian Ganio, who has been plundering and wearing his own father’s Paul Smith archive since the 1990s, the collection was a restrained but precisely composed remix of many menswear tropes that Smith has both witnessed and contributed to over those decades. Some of the highlights from this album of restored snapshots lent freshness through reprocessing included photo-prints and distorted paisley on slim fit workwear and outerwear, striped mohair knits, four button mod-recycling (and recycled) suiting north of crepe soled loafers, a lushly electric orange donkey jacket, and a pale blue three-quarter length shearling in which to be clad would feel simultaneously dad, rad, andbad(i.e. very good).Smith said on a call that following his 50th-anniversary show in Paris this time last year, the months of intermittent lockdown had thrown up no new creative experiences through which to cast this collection. “I was doing a lot of interviews about my time in the business and spending most of my days here in the office. It made me think that, well, I’m not going to museums or traveling, so my inspiration has got to come from my memory or what’s in this room.” This was a deftly designed collection that for those blessed with young eyes and short memories will look covetably new. For those more long in the tooth it will serve to renew our enthusiasm for this evergreen and ever-curious designer.
22 January 2021
Down the Zoom from his London showroom, Paul Smith said: “Somehow we got a collection together, like most people did. It’ll be interesting to see how it works out and how people do because I don’t think the reality of it all has fully surfaced yet, the large amounts of money that people are hemorrhaging.”Over his 16 week lockdown—during which he was the only company member going to the Covent Garden office, where he was obliged to do the dusting as well as balance the books—Smith spent some of his evenings poring through old holiday albums with his wife Pauline. “We have about 50 of them now,” he said: “even now, with digital, she still prints them and puts them in a book.” From that poignant reminisce emerged a menswear and womenswear collection that was built for a summer we all hope will be worth printing an album to remember, but can’t yet be sure of. In menswear a past trip to Havana, “where everything was stuck in the 1950s,” informed the retro-flected fabrics in deconstructing suiting, sometimes teaming jacket and trackpant and short sleeve Castro-esque shirting in deckchair stripes and a revived and blown-up polarized rose print. The unfussy leather sandals and jaunty woven hats were comfort accessories, and the semi-tailored overshirt/stadium jacket hybrids were garments of carefully designed restraint.Across the lookbook download menu to womenswear, parallel themes were touched upon but through a filter flavored more of Tuscany, the Smiths’ regular summer spot for decades. Reworked ditsy floral prints from the Smith archive were cut into separates worn around roomy dresses and other pieces in shades of terracotta, sunflower, and ochre. Short-skirt double breasted jackets and wide pants made for a flashback silhouette deserving of a revisit. These were clothes to wish you’ll be there in, wherever that may be.
1 October 2020
Down the Zoom from his London showroom, Paul Smith said: “Somehow we got a collection together, like most people did. It’ll be interesting to see how it works out and how people do, because I don’t think the reality of it all has fully surfaced yet, the large amounts of money that people are hemorrhaging.”Throughout his 16 week lockdown—during which he was the only company member going to the Covent Garden office, where he was obliged to do the dusting as well as balance the books—Smith spent some of his evenings poring through old holiday albums with his wife, Pauline. “We have about 50 of them now,” he said. “Even now, with digital, she still prints them and puts them in a book.” From that poignant reminiscence emerged a menswear and womenswear collection that was built for a summer we all hope will be worth printing an album to remember, but can’t yet be sure of. In menswear a past trip to Havana, “where everything was stuck in the 1950s,” informed the retro-flected fabrics in deconstructing suiting, sometimes teaming jacket and track pants and short-sleeve Castro-esque shirting in deck chair stripes and a revived and blown-up polarized rose print. The unfussy leather sandals and jaunty woven hats were comfort accessories, and the semi-tailored overshirt/stadium jacket hybrids were garments of carefully designed restraint.Across the look book download menu to womenswear, parallel themes were touched upon but through a filter flavored more of Tuscany, the Smiths’ regular summer spot for decades. Reworked ditsy floral prints from the Smith archive were cut into separates worn around roomy dresses and other pieces in shades of terra-cotta, sunflower, and ochre. Short-skirt double-breasted jackets and wide pants made for a flashback silhouette deserving of a revisit. These were clothes to wish you’ll be there in, wherever that may be.
1 October 2020
Shortly before this show began Bill Nighy was describing how he is often mistaken for Paul Smith. “The other day a man ran out of a cafe shouting ‘You designed this shirt!’” said the actor. At that very moment a clearly excited young woman walked up to us, eyes fixed on my bench mate, and said: “My greatest respects—can I please get a photo?” Nighy, a total pro in his element, rose and posed for a selfie. “I wear all your clothes,” said the woman as she got her shot before turning her attention to Anna Wintour. Nighy sighed and sat down. Not long afterwards, the real Paul Smith passed by, following a 58-look fashion show that was a fitting marker for his half century in the business. Back in 1970, Smith opened a very small shop named Vêtements Pour Homme in his home town of Nottingham and, hand-in-hand with his wife Pauline, began traversing the peripatetic and always inquisitive career path that has led to 2020. Along with his lookalike there were plenty of other famous client friends in the audience this evening: Jimmy Page grinned when a sample ofWhole Lotta Loveopened the soundtrack; to see Stanley Tucci and Wintour in the same room was meta; plus there was John Hamm, Ian McKellan, and Mark Strong all nodding along to a rumbustious soundtrack and giving it their best Blue Steel.You got a sense, however, that the theatrics were being saved for the dinner party afterwards: for this collection to have been too razzle dazzle, too jazz hands would have been inconsistent with the spirit of the house whose birthday it marked. What we got was an opening salvo of strong suiting in muted colors ranging from terracotta to clay that was notable for the long skirts and wide reveres of its variously coded jackets. Each suit came with a same color frayed brim bucket hat. These hats came off as three women’s looks, tailoring lead, reflected the launch of Paul Smith women in 1990. Then two rather marvelous single button double breasted overcoats, one black, one check, were the bread around a sandwich of high-V-neck knitwear of the type David Bowie once regularly sourced from Smith. Two perfectly indigo Canadian tuxedos for men and women marked the addition to the catalogue of Paul Smith jeans before we segued into prints and knits featuring a mashed up signature logo: this was something Smith had first played with after contemplating the result of a wonkily sent fax back in the dark ages.
The cool combat pants and workwear pieces could have been a nod to his Japanese offshoot Red Ear, but maybe that was pushing it a bit.Other old school hits included his ’90s introduction of photo prints via a reworked plate of spaghetti print blown up and broken down in yarn on knit and in print on long puffers and tracksuits. There was a floral camouflage section before we went wayyy back to Smith’s ’70s days via two updated Afghan shearlings and some kicking corduroy suiting. At the end a mixture of half zips and suiting in sky blue sent an uncomplicatedly positive message about where the limit lies. There’s only one Paul Smith (although tonight there were two).
19 January 2020
At the heavily ’70s Celine show, we would see baskets and T-shirts upon which Hedi Slimane (or at least one of this season’s artistic collaborators) soulfully stated: “I have a nostalgia for things I have probably never known.” Four hours earlier, and Paul Smith had been there the first time around. As he recalled backstage, on his first buying trip to New York in 1974, he and his partner, Pauline, stayed in Soho, where they trawled Pearl Paint and galleries including Pace and OK Harris. This was back when Soho was a Loft Law–protected artist’s paradise. An exhibition Smith caught on Dover Street recently rekindled his memories of that trip and formed the basis of a collection in which he worked to collage many Paul Smith–ish elements to offer a fresh perspective via an eye so seasoned it witnessed YSL couture back in 1968.My standout piece was the billow-pocket, three-button jacket, with a high waist, that was part arty garm, part officer’s battle dress. As Smith had pointed out, this was constructed with a traditional sleeve head, and in leather, linen, and cotton was variously teamed with a new smooth, loose pant shape, double cuffed at the heel for a more sinuously slim silhouette. The double-breasted was expanded to outerwear proportions, and in leather worn over three-button single-breasteds below.The colors ran the gamut from navy (a cool slim suit with zipper pockets on the pant leg in nylon) to pink (a leather pant you’d need to be 25 and rich to buy but would have a lot of fun wearing) and were often coordinated with chisel-toe Chelsea boots. Drawstring slouch bags worn cross-body created interesting abstract floral shapes against pinstripe synthetics. T-shirts in shirting stripes were printed with abstract photo-realist-inspired reliefs.Before today’s collage of past and present, Smith thoughtfully fingered some soft ochre-colored gabardine in a shape almost 3 inches lower in the skirt this season—as a three-button single-breasted would be worn against an amazing orange-lined trench and nylon ochre pant in the show. He observed: “It’s been so interesting for me seeing some of the shows, how many of them are back to suits again. This is our 82nd show. And we’ve nevernotshown suits.”
23 June 2019
“It’s very country comes to town,” said Paul Smith, backstage at his dual menswear and womenswear Fall show. “I suppose, in that, it’s a collection that’s really about self-expression, irreverence in mixing and finding things. Everyone has logos all over the place now, but that’s not what it was like for me growing up.”A glance backward to Smith’s youth—to finding, for example, his grandfather’s jumper or living through the punk era—resulted in a collection that skewed a bit younger and more freewheeling than we’ve come to expect from this designer, with varying degrees of success.The best parts came when Smith was able to quirkily and coolly blend that intended expressive spirit with his well-established penchant for dandyism. Beautiful colorful coats appeared early for both genders—“Our guys found some lovely old riding jackets that have these seams that go down the back, that are almost Victorian,” said Smith. They stuck; so did a gent’s pressed wool coat in royal blue, worn over somewhat disappointing skinny, jade-hued trousers and fantastic equine-meets-moto boots. A strong point was outerwear, layered and textured, done in a windowpane wool. “You know me, I love a windowpane,” laughed Smith.Less engrossing were color-blocked knit sweaters that felt superfluous and exotic-skinned jackets. A flower print, employed on a series of separates for both sexes, might also have benefited from a cleaner application: It ended up seeming a bit . . . overgrown.
20 January 2019
Paul Smith visited the multi-warehouse archive in Nottingham, England, that he’s amassed over a 48-year tenure as an independent designer for a collection that went back to where he’s been to show where he is—and suggest where we might want to be, too. Thus the resuscitation of wide-beam double-lapel-notch suits and overcoats in lavender or lemon pastels, or windowpane checks, or a scarlet leather or wool closing section. “I’ve done big in the past, but the difference now is that when you did big before, a jacket would have practically stood up on its own: 500-gram tailoring instead of 200,” said Sir Paul in a speedy preshow confab.This season, Smith said, the show had “a new venue, new stylist, new hair, new makeup—but they’ve kept me. You know, I’ve been meeting a lot of people in the last 24 hours who’ve been to all the shows this season and they are saying it’s all ‘sportswear, sportswear, sportswear’: But this is about being honest to my core. So many houses change designers all the time. And that can be very difficult for buyers when they [houses] have been doing a certain look and all of a sudden they are not.” The soundtrack flashed from Little Richard to Neneh Cherry during a show that emphasized both the continuity and variation in youth culture and the output of Paul Smith. Knit half-zip bicycling jerseys in two-tone checks mirrored the cute two-tone socks and ankle boots in a women’s collection that also offered plenty of wide, easy, light suiting, a lot of photo-print silk shirtdresses and vaguely rockabilly (the new hair helped) dresses. Those photo prints, such an early hit for Smith, were this season taken from photographs of long-lost holiday vistas taken not only by Smith, but also his father. Yes, there were a few blousons, even one with a hood, plus a cuffed track pant. In the dance hall gloom of the venue it was quite hard to tell whether an all-navy cotton silk men’s look was tailored at the shoulder or soft: whatever, the neatness of its north and the pleated-to-tapered south made a pleasing pole for the eye to navigate. Men’s shoes included pared-back two-color-uppered loafers and patent Chelsea boots.As I ran out of backstage so as not to be stuck there during the show—which would have been a very great shame—Sir Paul offered one final pearl: “The particular joy I’m finding now is that I’m an independent company. In Japan it’s a license, and not my business: In the rest of the world I own 70 percent.
We are not on the stock market or owned by a hedge fund or anything like that.” This he said with deep contentment.
24 June 2018
Paul Smith isn’t a boastful fellow—I’ve never heard him use the “Sir” he’s strictly entitled to before his name. But he does sometimes point out that he was around when what’s come around—and has since gone around—first went around. This afternoon he mentioned a commission from the Wool Board back in the 1980s to both himself and Giorgio Armani to interpret the suit softly. “We both did softer inlines, softer shoulders . . . I was just reminded of it recently.”Smith added: “I’m just doing what I love, which is my tailoring. As you know, Milan was very sportswear and very trainers. But I wear suits every day of my life and I love them.” There were three jacket shapes tonight; a high, four-button, double-breasted, and a single- and double-buttoned single-breasted. Smith cut in a five-centimeter upswing from the front to the back of their skirts to give some tilt above medium wide pants with a hint of kick. Slim double-breasted frock coats in powerfully colored hopsack had typically Smith linings featuring a pile of books. There was a heap of vertically split jackets and coats; pleats against plain, checks against plain.Womenswear included many long satin dresses, some of them with ribbon appliqués and others printed with the Edmund Dulac “Dreamer” print that was the collection’s decorative motif, also engrained on the back of a biker that was one of a series of heavy calf outerwear pieces. Smith incorporated zipped cinching at the ankles of some pants worn under men’s leather outerwear, but really—as he said at the top—this was an ode to tailoring. The Wool Board might think about him for a reunion.
21 January 2018
Another Spring ’18 show, another tide of Hawaiian shirts. In fact this season has had so many shirts it seems quaint, almost laughable, to image a shirt might be anything but Hawaiian. Naturally, Paul Smith is no parvenu when it comes to vibrantly patterned short-sleeved shirting.“Back in the ’70s I used to buy a lot of vintage Hawaiian shirts from shops in New York and then bring them back to my shop in Nottingham. A lot of kids would come from Sheffield and Wigan to buy them.” Some of those left unsold remained in Smith’s archives until being disinterred to become the inspiration for the prints that ran through this collection. They included a lovely frond-framed landscape of some paradise isle in moonlight, a landscape of coral and hibiscus punctuated by carp and fantails mid-twist, and sections of a newly rustled up landscape of sunset-strafed mountains above which was advertised a Paul Smith brand of tuna and mackerel. These prints were not confined to the shirting, but rioted beyond it onto coated ripstop parkas, wrapped silk dresses for women, printed trousers for men, espadrilles, jacquard jackets, jacquard bombers, knitted T-shirts, a Tuna brand tie (for big fish in business), knitted sweaters, handbags, and totes. Their patterns were also used as the outline for the lace inserts on a black silk dress and the drawn threadwork on a very pretty-pretty for Smith violently red dress.The collection was not limited to print. Some of its primary colors were imported into the plain pants (wider, high rise, single- to triple-pleat) and jackets often used as accents to their vibrancy. There was also an undertow of attractive checked suiting, cut narrowish, straight, and long, and some attractive dimpled heavy seersucker combat pants and field jackets in navy, olive, and sand.However, as the models walked the finale of a collection entitled Ocean to “Octopus’s Garden” by the Beatles, it was hard to conclude that the star this afternoon was anything but the Hawaiian shirt and its similarly printed Paul Smith cousins. What did he think was the secret of the garment’s enduring and resurgent popularity? “Well,” said Smith: “firstly it’s an easy shirt to wear. And we are coming out of a period of skinny, body-hugging clothes in general. With a wider higher rise pant it looks good to wear a shirt out over it. But it’s just a summer shirt, really. I suppose, in a way we shouldn’t really use the word Hawaiian.” Oh no.
Don’t say that now—it’s the last day of the season!
25 June 2017
Another Spring ’18 show, another tide of Hawaiian shirts. In fact this season has had so many shirts it seems quaint, almost laughable, to image a shirt might be anything but Hawaiian. Naturally, Paul Smith is no parvenu when it comes to vibrantly patterned short-sleeved shirting.“Back in the ’70s I used to buy a lot of vintage Hawaiian shirts from shops in New York and then bring them back to my shop in Nottingham. A lot of kids would come from Sheffield and Wigan to buy them.” Some of those left unsold remained in Smith’s archives until being disinterred to become the inspiration for the prints that ran through this collection. They included a lovely frond-framed landscape of some paradise isle in moonlight, a landscape of coral and hibiscus punctuated by carp and fantails mid-twist, and sections of a newly rustled up landscape of sunset-strafed mountains above which was advertised a Paul Smith brand of tuna and mackerel. These prints were not confined to the shirting, but rioted beyond it onto coated ripstop parkas, wrapped silk dresses for women, printed trousers for men, espadrilles, jacquard jackets, jacquard bombers, knitted T-shirts, a Tuna brand tie (for big fish in business), knitted sweaters, handbags, and totes. Their patterns were also used as the outline for the lace inserts on a black silk dress and the drawn threadwork on a very pretty-pretty for Smith violently red dress.The collection was not limited to print. Some of its primary colors were imported into the plain pants (wider, high rise, single- to triple-pleat) and jackets often used as accents to their vibrancy. There was also an undertow of attractive checked suiting, cut narrowish, straight, and long, and some attractive dimpled heavy seersucker combat pants and field jackets in navy, olive, and sand.However, as the models walked the finale of a collection entitled Ocean to “Octopus’s Garden” by the Beatles, it was hard to conclude that the star this afternoon was anything but the Hawaiian shirt and its similarly printed Paul Smith cousins. What did he think was the secret of the garment’s enduring and resurgent popularity? “Well,” said Smith: “firstly it’s an easy shirt to wear. And we are coming out of a period of skinny, body-hugging clothes in general. With a wider higher rise pant it looks good to wear a shirt out over it. But it’s just a summer shirt, really. I suppose, in a way we shouldn’t really use the word Hawaiian.” Oh no.
Don’t say that now—it’s the last day of the season!
25 June 2017
Backstage at the École des Beaux-Artes—as fitting a venue for a Paul Smith show as one can imagine—the designer looped his finger into the waist of his emerald-silk-lined red-on-green-check suit and explained this was a simultaneous going back and forward. Many of the fabrics in this, Smith’s first co-ed show, were similar to those he used at his first ever—held in a hotel room here in Paris in 1976. “Back then, though, the fabrics would have been twice the weight of what they are today,” Smith said.Tailoring for both men and women took center stage. The women’s jackets were hemmed lower and cut wider, and were a touch lusher in their crisscross or feather-embossed jacquards than the men’s, but only a touch. On occasion, this veteran (whose first-ever shop was called Vetements de Paul Smith) added a collared track pant, or a soft shearling, or a rainbow grosgrain parka to the mix to present a contextual relevance. The women’s looks included feather and paisley print silks, plus silk shorts cut low over check pants cut high. The animals that frolicked here and there were culled from a well-thumbed 19th-century tome,The Instructive Picture Book, that presented exotic animals to closeted Britons. Pad stitched jackets—“to allow the curl of the lapel”—were among the tricks in this show Smith said he’d first learned at night school and from his Royal College-educated wife, muse, and constantly credited beloved, Pauline.He observed: “A fashion show is 13 minutes of showing you guys that we are still coming up with ideas and showing the buyers that they can pay the rent. If you dissect all these, you have a great pair of trousers, a great belt, or great shoes . . . there are 15 outfits for women and 20 outfits for men here; come into my showroom and you will see a thousand pieces.” This was the piece of Smith he felt like showing this season.
22 January 2017
Backstage at the École des Beaux-Artes—as fitting a venue for a Paul Smith show as one can imagine—the designer looped his finger into the waist of his emerald-silk-lined red-on-green-check suit and explained this was a simultaneous going back and forward. Many of the fabrics in this, Smith’s first co-ed show, were similar to those he used at his first ever—held in a hotel room here in Paris in 1976. “Back then, though, the fabrics would have been twice the weight of what they are today,” Smith said.Tailoring for both men and women took center stage. The women’s jackets were hemmed lower and cut wider, and were a touch lusher in their crisscross or feather-embossed jacquards than the men’s, but only a touch. On occasion, this veteran (whose first-ever shop was called Vetements de Paul Smith) added a collared track pant, or a soft shearling, or a rainbow grosgrain parka to the mix to present a contextual relevance. The women’s looks included feather and paisley print silks, plus silk shorts cut low over check pants cut high. The animals that frolicked here and there were culled from a well-thumbed 19th-century tome,The Instructive Picture Book, that presented exotic animals to closeted Britons. Pad stitched jackets—“to allow the curl of the lapel”—were among the tricks in this show Smith said he’d first learned at night school and from his Royal College-educated wife, muse, and constantly credited beloved, Pauline.He observed: “A fashion show is 13 minutes of showing you guys that we are still coming up with ideas and showing the buyers that they can pay the rent. If you dissect all these, you have a great pair of trousers, a great belt, or great shoes . . . there are 15 outfits for women and 20 outfits for men here; come into my showroom and you will see a thousand pieces.” This was the piece of Smith he felt like showing this season.
22 January 2017
From afar, what looked to be white on blue polka dots came into focus on daisy prints linked by wending chain on a furling-hemmed blue mac and low skirted, 90-degree vent jacket worn above Bermudas. This was a floral collection full of woozily appealing gentle silhouettes and richly unorthodox color combinations inspired by the artist Hilma af Klint—“so not Gustav, with all the gold”—as Smith clarified after.Paul Smith’ssummer as a vital cipher of the progressive is probably past him. But his temperate autumn as a considered handler of subtlety against the consensus source of easy-on-the-eye womenswear lingers long. From the beaten silver inverted-heart jewelry, via Smith-striped laces looped into espadrilles, to the petal frond cuffs and collars sprouting from the neck and collar, there was plenty of gentle quirk here. Smith’s blown-up seersucker had appealing pucker, while hand-painted or beaded botanical silhouettes in surprising chords of color were the surface flutter above expertly bedded silhouettes allowed to run wildly loose. Smith is a hardy perennial worth exploring for the sophisticated millennial.
18 September 2016
Positivity. Happiness. Bright socks. There were many simple yet satisfying aspects to theme, atmosphere and even the invitation (those socks) atPaul Smithtoday. The catwalk around the Bourse de Commerce was coated in the same rainbow stripes as the hosiery. Sir Paul said he started with memories of sybaritic late 1960s nights spent in Wardour Street, London, at The Flamingo Club and Whiskey a Go Go. “It was an interesting time. There was a lot of self-expression around.”Of-that-time tics like popped rainbow collars on white-bodied shirts, and pants cut quite slimly sharp but cinched high-waisted with uncolored leather belts—whose delicate floral detailing counterpointed the micro-studding on boots and shoes—were not especially the point. Examples of perfectly contemporary pieces which were injected with punch and vim included multi-pocket jumpsuits in midnight blue with rainbow collars or rainbow madras; seersucker military shirts in the same pulsating arrangement; crease-proof suiting with white contours of double stitched swell-edging; and a strawberry-embroidered olive jacket were. There was a lot of detail to enjoy here —such as a cricket sweater whose weave eschewed the usual Aran intersections for creeping florals, or ringer tees with rainbow sections of perforated synthetic fabric and unblemished fine knit—but it was also a pleasure to just relax and watch this happy show happen.
26 June 2016
What is, has been. Along with Ralph L. and Giorgio A. and Karl L., only SirPaul Smithranks as a designer working today with the chops and the backstory to make the power of yesterday plain to a new generation. And tonight Sir Paul, who is streamlining his collection into a more cohesive whole, tried to deliver just that message.Did you know that in the ’70s—nearly half a century ago—Paul Smith opened a tiny shop in his hometown and called it—“pretentiously, in retrospect,” as he once told me—Paul Smith Vêtements pour Hommes? Suck on that, Demna, you callow, pulled-too-high tracksuit-loving newbie.In this shop Smith sold vintage paisley scarves whose imprint we saw echoed tonight in the patched and embellished additions to strongly shouldered silk-mix dresses and suits. The bitten apple motif hailed from a collection back in ’82. “My reference is me!” Sir Paul said afterward. It worked pretty well. The absolutely most compelling look was an all-navy ensemble of a low-collared four gold-buttoned DB blazer above soft cinched pants and a ruffle-cuffed shirt—it was just great. The Lurex printed floral spaced out in a pantsuit and dress pulsed with color, but could maybe have benefited from a touch of focus. The split at the back of a tunic with a tiered blue button made this reviewer think of Giorgio A. back in the day. The problem with asserting your backstory—as Smith did so well here—is that the argument needs to contain a rationale for going forward. Here that should probably be in the suiting: Sir P. is as sensitive to the subtleties of cut as a plant is sensitive to sunlight—but his touch for the more historically feminine is perhaps just a little less assured. If Smith really wants to examine his past to define his future, this collection should move forward by focusing on loose sartorial suiting for women: He could own it.
21 February 2016
SirPaul Smithis regularly stopped on the street in London and beyond by men who thank him for the suits they got married in. Prime ministers and pouting rock stars alike slip into clothes stamped with his name when they want to impress: The cult of Smith is a broad church.Which is why, for the sake of manageability, he has had to tailor the span and schedule of his sermons a little—by combining seven of his collections for men and women into two. “The reaction has been awesome,” he said backstage today: “We’ve reorganized the entire studio, and we are on a little bit of a high.”Perhaps it’s because Smith is now squeezing several formerly differently delineated diffusion propositions—suiting, more casual, and fashion-forward—under a single flag, but today’s collection sometimes felt almost stressfully eclectic to watch. It was an impression boosted by the fact that the models came at you from two directions at once, to an impressively mixed soundtrack, which was like a well-stocked MP3 player set to random on hyper-speed—although “Step On” by the Happy Mondays and “Come Together” by the Beatles do sound damn fine when played simultaneously.Upon backstage contemplation, however, there was harmony to be found in the chatter. Smith’s coats and trousers with front-lateral jacquard vertical stripes had oomph, and his powerfully colored narrow-collared reverse-shearling topcoats even more so. Trouser shapes kicked from gentle low flare to narrow high crop (the better to flash a boot in). There was plenty of tailoring deformalized by tinglingly colored zip-ups. Eccentric embroideries included the curled outline of paisley tears on suiting and washed denim, and teeth-baring dinosaurs on shirting and knits. As happens only rarely at menswear, the clothes look better in this gallery than they appeared in the flesh: The format here was such that it felt like you only had an instant to see a look before something completely different came along. It’s a minor gripe, though. Sir Paul will not stop being accosted by happy customers in the street any time soon.
24 January 2016
Paul Smithand his wife, Pauline Denyer Smith, were once couture show regulars and to this day one of Pauline’s prize possessions is the last Smoking ever made byYves Saint Laurent. Preshow this afternoon, Sir Paul said, “When you hold that suit, the weight is amazing—it gives this lovely drape.” Drape was one of the key preoccupations of this collection, which, while obviously not produced on a couture level, managed to force its fabrics elegantly to assert their designer’s will against the implacable tug of gravity. Thus, the first dress—a silk-screened mélange of orange on two clashing patterns—signaled the turned-up volume, Sir Paul–style, of many of the looks that followed. The colors were drawn from David Hockney, while the disjunctive block shapes of the printed panels looked to be mined from Henri Matisse, appropriate enough for a show held at the Serpentine Galleries.Smith makes a masterful pant and is especially sensitive to the subtleties of the break. Today’s finest broke lavishly on a pair that came wide-legged and pin-tucked in gray wool, worn under a matching jacket with a lean lapel that featured six mysteriously nonfunctional buttons. Elsewhere, a short-sleeved, asymmetrically hemmed jacket challenged the masculine codes from which it was drawn. The croc cross straps on colorful rubber-clad platforms echoed the built-in cross-body suspenders that recurred throughout the collection, while the house’s newly boosted accessories team delivered some harmonious harmonica handbags and a tote so ingeniously colored that it seemed to be its own light source.
20 September 2015
"I really don't like to name-drop," Sir Paul Smith said while he checked his phone to find his show's track list. Style.com couldn't help but catch an eyeful of his inbox as he did it. And what do you know: Sir Paul's latest e-mail was from Gary Oldman. "Don't write that, or I'll come around your house!"Despite himself (and tellingly, because of) this was a collection that demanded its designer indulge in a spot of name-dropping. There were 32 looks in all, and while there were certainly motifs that ran irregularly through them—such as gingham, extreme volume, extreme tightness, ants, pulsating color, and, of course, tailoring—this was a collection whose chief theme was the lack of one. Unless you count looking pretty damned fly.At first it seemed that this might be an entirely musically focused collection that instead of majoring on one genre of frontman élan was a kind of menswear Traveling Wilburys. Because surely there was some Talking Heads, some Led Zep, some Bowie (two iterations), and some Jagger there too? The soundtrack, a tightly packed terrine of tunes (25 of them) that ranged from Bow Wow Wow to the White Stripes, only helped to emphasize this impression. Backstage Sir Paul conceded that the blue bell-bottoms were rather similar to some 36-centimeter-wide strides he'd once made for Bowie, and that there was a bit of Jimmy Page too (who when Smith made pants for him had a 24-inch waist). But any similarity to characters iconic in the fields of music, art, or acting was—while not strictly coincidental—merely a by-product of Smith's focus on presenting a panorama of diversely expressive individual menswear looks. Although yes, there was a lot of David Hockney in the color palette of turquoise and coral. "He is a customer and a friend," Smith said. "My wife, Pauline, was with him at the Royal College, and at his graduation he wore a gold lamé jacket and dyed his hair blond—so he is another independent mind."Notable fabrications included linens layered with Lurex on jackets and smocks, a metallic-weave jacket or two, wide-weave polo shirts, and polka-dot-dyed suiting. There were ants on those pants because they represented a hive mentality that Smith said he was engaged in rejecting: "It's just about being your own character." As well as being an in-your-face history lesson for all those designers who reference musical history that they've only ever seen on YouTube, this was indeed a rich mixtape of characterful and individual pieces.
Play it again, Sir Paul.
28 June 2015
A postshow back-and-forth with Sir Paul Smith is invariably one of the keenest pleasures of fashion week—craggy, curious, and caring, he tends to teach you something. Today, though, deprivation: As an editor nearby rather testily tweeted, this show started precisely 42 minutes late (Topshop Unique beforehand ran seriously behind too). That time was spent languishing in the drafty purgatory of a Central Saint Martins atrium that, for some reason, smelled powerfully of damp dog. And afterward, everyone skedaddled pronto into the rain to sit in traffic and kvetch about the next domino.Yet it is a testament to Sir Paul and his team that despite this mild torture, his collection was impossible to resent. Echoing last month's menswear proposition, geometrics were a loose motif: a washed-out colored check gridded across a jumpsuit and loose tailored trousers. It came oversized on a four-buttoned, high-collar overcoat. The kaleidoscope turned when a diagonal cross of seams centered high on the chest was made the boundary of a paneled remix of those 90-degree certainties, seen on a check wool sweater worn above matching trousers, and also on a ribbed navy knit. There was perhaps a surfeit of short-hemmed wide pants—or narrowish culottes, depending on your point of origin—worn over shoe-boots. These worked wonderfully when the length of the coat above them happened to segue, but that was a one-off. The supremely dégagé khakis, pinstripes, and plain pants cut full-length, with the slightest break, and worn over flats, seemed endlessly explorable.An unstructured high gray flannel blazer quietly subverted the hierarchy of the masculine tailoring it aped by ending several inches higher than the ribbed high-necked camel sweater worn beneath it. Can-I-borrow-one shearlings—how snug they looked—were drenched Sunny D orange. Dark pink checked coats were dressed up with covert-style contrast collars and oversized patch pockets. A silk nightshirt skirt was worn under a fluffy-side-out shearling gilet, this one barely dyed at all. Worth the wait, the wet, and the whiff.
22 February 2015
Near his hometown of Nottingham, the collect-o-maniac designer Paul Smith keeps several warehouses' worth of archives—to which he recently took his young London-based design team for a browse. "And they all got so excited," said Smith. "The danger is that as you get older as a person and a company, you get history, you think, 'Oh, I've done that'—forgetting that the 19- to 30-year-olds haven't seen it."The upshot was this collection: a measured romp through 1970s sources that didn't feel defined by that decade. Yes, the finale fur coats were reminiscent of those Sir Paul saw Deep Purple perform in at a student bar in the ’70s—but they'd be just as impactful today on a rapper. Even that defining 1970s meme, the flare, didn't seem entirely out of time here—high-rised and with just the slimmest of taper, it kind of worked. The square over-checking on suits and pumped-silhouette down coats, as well as the triangular decorations on jewelry and knitwear, hailed from the work of Josef and Anni Albers—although with Toots and the Maytals on the sound system that check seemed touched by the Specials.Smith said: "The skill of being a designer is to have a very childlike outlook on life. Like Picasso said, even as he got older he tried to have the eyes of a child and to paint with freedom." The young design team with which Smith has surrounded himself is empowering him to consider his history without becoming mired in the past—and to produce clothes that feel relevant to the present.
25 January 2015
Paul Smith is fashion's equivalent of a whirling dervish: He is constantly excited and seems to have boundless energy. With multiple women's, men's, and accessories collections on the go at the same time, the challenge for him is to have each one maintain a distinct personality. "The idea is to generate new ideas under pressure," the designer said backstage, a little breathless having just finished his closing-moment jog across the runway. "You have to avoid becoming the hamster in the wheel."Smith's aesthetic is all about the stripe, the floral, and the work looks. To keep things interesting this season, he turned to fringes and other details like tuxedo lapels and drop hems, which are not usually part of his repertoire. The opening looks were deconstructed, loosely tailored pieces in taupe, cornflower blue, and blush rose in linens and ticking stripe, with the aforementioned tuxedo lapels and fringes, but the use of the new elements was subtle, with wearable results. Panels of sheer silk on skirts and blouses lent a touch of femininity to looks that were borrowed from the boys; menswear is the heart and soul of Smith's brand, after all, hence the bib fronts, mannish trousers, and oversize culottes.The strongest looks were in the middle, with nautical pink and blue ombré stripes on a fringed tank top and skirt, followed by a dress with a dropped, pleated hem that felt fresh and summery. Add to that the easy blue floral silk top worn with a contrasting skirt with a spliced pleat detail, and it was apparent why Smith has stayed in business for so long: He avoids getting stale.
14 September 2014
Sir Paul Smith is known to take his party hosting very seriously, busying about and hovering over shoulders to make sure his guests have all they need for a proper frolic. The same meticulous pursuit of leisurely perfection seeped through his Spring men's collection, staged under the soaring glass dome of the Bourse de Commerce, where a site-specific garden of potted cacti and succulents had been installed, replacing the piles of Oriental rugs in the same space last season.He explained the plants backstage. "My young designers, who are only 20 to 25, are so interested in cultivating their own gardens," he said. "I think it's so delightful that the young generation wants to do that. The news is so full of horror. When people ask my advice, I think of them and say, 'Just relax. Tend a garden.'"The greenery, which made it into the collection as a fern print, was but one facet of the sprawling show. Smith typically melds eclectic cultural sources with idiosyncratic colors and textures, creating a well-traveled, well-informed Pop sensibility. He did the same here in a disparate assemblage of near-louche scarves, desert shades, friendship rings, subtle paisley (if paisley can be subtle), at least two kinds of fringe, papery leather, a chevron motif, purplish plaids, and kitschy prints—all converging to create a lively and decidedly outré rejoinder to the chaos of the world.The two pieces of a traditional suit—no vests here, somewhat surprisingly—had been pulled apart and paired with other, more casual items of the modern man's wardrobe: pajamas, tunics, track pants, shorts, sweatshirts, Harrington jackets. The liquid loungewear aspect may not find its way into men's wardrobes as easily as the humorous knits or the dusty dégradé. But it's an option, should any of Smith's customers be in the market for proper frolic attire. Besides, he says, "I was brought up on Pop Art and rock 'n' roll. I will always be irreverent."
28 June 2014
Paul Smith channeled Jim Morrison for his men's show in Paris last month, so it was a natural leap to assume he had summoned up Stevie Nicks when a cover of "Go Your Own Way" opened his women's collection. He chuckled in his usual affable way, replying that he wasn't directly riffing on the rock queen so much as her prime period in the late 1970s—a time that predated high street fast fashion, one in which women were forced to be more resourceful about their personal style. In this way, he cut and pasted (figuratively, anyway) prints into new patterns and gave his models the moxie to pull off silk pajama jumpsuits during daytime hours… in the winter.Those jewel-toned fancy patterns—including stripes, paisleys, and damask jacquards—originated from Persian carpets and wallpapers and gave the collection a seasonless fluidity that was balanced with color-blocked shearling-paneled outerwear, lived-in sweaters, and extra-long evening coats. If the collection skewed more masculine than in recent seasons, it was also somehow more sensual. You could chalk this up to the styling—jackets worn over nothing, and shirts left open down to there—or quite simply the sexy slouch of a low-slung dressy sweatpant. Smith made a point of declaring this collection a personal favorite. It was quite the superlative for a lineup that could prove tough to remember a few seasons from now. But by then Smith will have likely moved on to his next nostalgic muse.
15 February 2014
Jim Morrison, who died in Paris at the age of 27, would have turned 70 last month. But contemplating the rock icon as a septuagenarian could potentially lead to dark places. So with The Doors pumping through the domed atrium of the Bourse de Commerce and quarter notes woven into jacquards, the ever-ebullient Sir Paul Smith conjured up one of his music idols in a way that favored imagination over representation. Backstage after the show, Smith cited the importance of relaxing the silhouette this season; coats like dressing gowns, trousers as roomy as pajama bottoms, and jackets that neglected to nip the waist were the strongest examples.Smith was equally adamant that his vaguely ethnic rug patterns had been custom-designed to include the music motifs, all while underscoring hand-craftsmanship as a necessary constituent of the collection's soul. Not that the look struggled to express personality; a leather hooded sweatshirt and tie-dyed jogging pants proposed yet another spin on men's loungewear. Smith also wasn't wrong to think that men welcome sequined sneakers (although the similarly shimmery Western shirt skewed more Mick than Jim). Smocks with tearaway side snaps seemed radically proportioned by Smith's standards. But then he reminded us that he put David Bowie in a dramatic pair of trousers 30 years ago, which makes you realize he doesn't exercise his feisty side enough. Or when he does, it usually plays out as pop—i.e. sweaters fronted with a large Lurex flamingo or a pair of palm trees (symbolizing the neon road signs of Morrison's California years). Picturing Morrison in a cashmere robe coat and papery leather pants seemed just about right.
18 January 2014
Sir Paul Smith opened and closed his show today with two identical suits, one in blue and one in yellow. The suits were slouchy, comprising a square single-button jacket and fluid cuffed trousers, and they had the sexy, shrugged-on attitude of a woman playing dress-up in her husband's closet.Ah, you thought, watching the first suit, the blue one, walk down the runway: Paul Smith has got its authority back. And then, at the end of the show, as the yellow suit took its turn on the catwalk, you thought about what might have been. This collection wasn't bad—it was stocked with perfectly nice pieces—but it had a grab-bag quality, and the clothes only rarely seemed to articulate a point of view. Smith's long shirtdresses exuded some of the sexy, carefree confidence found in those mannish blue and yellow suits; his baggy, rolled-up trousers, ruffle-detailed blouses, and multicolor hand-knits had a workday look and a vacation attitude. Most of the other looks, though, only offered novelty. Notably, Smith was fixated on lapels this season and created jackets that emphasized the lapels in a variety of ways, in particular by exaggerating their size or silhouette. It was hard to see the point. It was also hard to imagine the woman who'd wear the mannish suits or the sexy long shirtdresses, bothering with those jackets, or the printed minidresses, or the short shorts.
14 September 2013
Seven looks into Paul Smith's Spring men's show, a giant multicolored mushroom appeared on a shirt. Further on, it multiplied into an allover motif, sprouting from the yoke of a chambray shirt, or woven into a jacquard. You might assume this was Smith's way of telling us these were fun guys (fungi, get it?); he being a master at Brit wit and all.But Smith seemed more focused on the collision of sportswear and suiting—and how they can coexist in a variety of hybrid, high-impact separates. Backstage, he said the juxtaposition of skateboarding and snowboarding performance materials with superfine summer wool hit an incongruous sweet spot that has become something of a Smith signature. He pointed out that there wasn't any formal suiting (a puckered jacket-and-pant combo in a juicy melon hue came closest). Instead, he showed a clever cropped blouson in a giant windowpane fabric with a drawstring nylon layer poking out below. A knee-length coat combined patches of bouncy mesh and supple leather. Hot-pink pants were capped off with fuchsia zippered sweatband cuffs.Yet this duality was not nearly as obvious as the trippy asymmetry. A triangular patch of color started on one pant leg and widened seamlessly across the other. Thick, irregular bands of contrasting color (or non-color in some cases) wrapped around sport jackets that were shown over shirts with dramatically elongated collars. Fine-gauge knits were covered in random regions of pink. Even the zippered plackets appeared more trapezoidal than rectangular. Smith conceded that he had no idea where this idea came from—not that every design inspiration requires motivation (the black sandals and black socks remain a question mark). Aha, maybe the mushrooms made him do it.
29 June 2013
There's no point mincing words: This was a seriously weird Paul Smith show. Sir Paul seemed to take a "see what sticks" approach to his womenswear this season, throwing a plethora of ideas at the figurative wall. The ideas themselves bore no self-evident relationship to one another, with each concept working well in a few cases but not in many others. For instance, Melissa Tammerijn looked pretty terrific in a pair of lean, cobalt blue, geometric-print pants; that was the first and last time Smith had a hit with the blue print. Yet his success rate was way higher with the same print in fiery red: It came off well in a short, fitted minidress, and made for a high-impact bonded lining to a mannish black overcoat. You had to wonder: What was going on here? The same logic, or lack thereof, applied to the fluttery detail on numerous silk blouses, and to the shiny looks embossed with architectural scenery. It was interesting to see Smith experiment with technical materials and new print processes and silhouettes, and some of his architectural pieces had a lot of charm. But as a whole, they didn't seem to fit into the Paul Smith idiom at all.Naturally, Smith was on firmer ground with his menswear-inspired tailoring. There were two key trouser silhouettes this season: a cropped, tapered pant with some volume, and a short shape that was slouchier and more boyish. Neither was particularly innovative, but they worked nicely to ground the looks. Meanwhile, Smith's confidence with color really came through in his tailoring, as he refreshed similar ensembles by recombining colors in various painterly ways. The collection's other strength was its outerwear, especially the oversize navy shearling motorcycle jacket with electric blue trim and the abbreviated, boxy peacoat in white and navy. Amid all the experimental pyrotechnics here, it was the modest look that matched the peacoat with a pair of bright blue boyish trousers that set off the biggest bang tonight. It's tempting to call that weird, but as a matter of fact, it's not.
16 February 2013
After his giddy, Technicolor show, Paul Smith was admitting that it's tricky to do color in the Fall. But he'd gone and done it anyway. It's hard to find a faster pick-me-up than brights, and the collection, Smith said, was "about optimism during this difficult period in the world." So if someone's got to light the way, he'll do it. The decision arguably put him at a remove from his fellow designers in what was a dark season full of black and white, charcoal, and deeper, boskier shades—forest green, burgundy, and so on. But Smith has been doing it long enough to take the long view, not the seasonal one, or so one assumes. Either way, the retailers were salivating. Color pops—in stores and, more importantly than ever, online.If the path was well-worn, the shapes were, too. Smith put out pleated trousers and exuberant knits in color combinations that practically sparked, like Prussian blue and teal. There were knits that fizzed—in fuzzy kid mohair and alpaca—and those that literally glittered with Lurex; one particularly zippy one had multicolored blocks of cabling. Even the soles of Smith's shoes were painted. Many designers have been revisiting traditional menswear fabrics and patterns this season, and here Smith joined the crowd—though his houndstooth car coat was purple. Still, it should all pull apart to move. No accident, that. "Separates have never been so important," Sir Paul opined.
19 January 2013
Sir Paul Smith doesn't break a sweat. Today, he showed a typically assured collection, albeit one that tiptoed just outside his comfort zone. The focus here was on color-blocking, a theme Smith reiterated through long, breezy dresses, pleated skirts, cropped pants, and pajama tops blocked with print. Some of the dresses came off a bit shapeless, but Smith's pleated skirts, slit on one side, boasted a cool, understated Céline-ish sexiness. Elsewhere, Smith did well with one particular shape of cropped trouser: High-waisted, pleated, and rather mannish, they had some of the oddball appeal of a thrift store find. Where this collection tread into dangerous territory was in its closing passage of striped knits. The fitted jackets were a touch eccentric, which was OK, but if there's a case to be made for the return of the stirrup pant, this was not it. Still, these pieces, and the voluminous dresses as well, served notice that the unflappable Smith isn't prepared to rest on his laurels quite yet.
15 September 2012
"Optimism" was Paul Smith's word for Spring. "Tough world, so optimism shows through," he said after the presentation. He was in jolly spirits for a man who'd scored his entire show, front to back, to the sounds of New Order.But for Sir Paul, good business is good humor, and he reports that his suits are going gangbusters. That may be part of the reason he focused so strongly on them in this vivid, colorful show. This season, the suits come sharper and more tailored, with more defined shoulders and more cinched-in waists in the jackets, and cuffed cigarette trousers below.Two prints—a sliced-and-diced rose, and a graphic print formed of the scissors that did the slicing—looked fine but a bit beside the point. They paled, very literally, before the barrage of dusty-colored suits that closed the show. With their slight sixties swing, they gave the models the look of a rainbow-as-rock-band. Crank it up. Season after season, Smith reminds us that he still does. This time around, he seemed readier than usual to be writ large—that is to say, played loud.
30 June 2012
How do you know you've made it as a designer? Here's an interesting thought experiment for up-and-comers: On an off day, are you still selling clothes? Sir Paul Smith has incontrovertibly made it, and the proof is that, despite the fact that his new collection represented something of an off day for the Paul Smith brand, there were still more than a handful of looks at today's show that were readily desirable. Paul Smith at status quo does just fine, and it's to Smith's credit, really, that he continues to experiment.First, the good. Smith sent out his usual complement of natty menswear-inspired looks; alongside the predictably charming boy-cut trousers and jackets, there was a new winning silhouette in wide-leg pants cropped a little bit short and worn with a matching long coat. Smith executed the look in a gray checked wool that he set off with elegant black trim. Elsewhere, there were pretty painterly prints, punchy knits, a smattering of pajama-inspired pieces, and a few evening looks overlaid in mesh, all nice. Smith was on shakier ground with his velvets: Some of the simpler looks were good, if unremarkable, but the velvet-faced leggings with long back zips were a bit off. And a few of his artsy pieces, like a gray suit that looked as though it had been sprayed in neon paint, only generated a kind of "hm?" response. All in all, this show made for something of a disappointment after several solid seasons from Paul Smith, but there was still plenty to like.
18 February 2012
A nautical theme was promised by the invitation and the backdrop. Andrew Hale described the soundtrack he'd created as "Portobello-on-Sea," which suggested there'd be hipness in the mix, too. A foghorn sounded forlornly as the first model appeared. But of groovy sailors there was not a sign in Paul Smith's new show. The anchor motif on a sweater, a watery sweatshirt print, another of deep-sea organisms were concessions to the assumed theme. Otherwise, there was a straightforward parade of dark, skinny tailoring, with fluoro accents to break the gloom. Smith used to be the standard-bearer for a charmingly dandified Britishness. It was surely that ambassadorial role which snared him the prestigious City of Paris award he picked up earlier this week, but here his clothes slotted into a generic international style. Efficient it may be, but there was nothing about the sporty outerwear and the slightly shrunken jackets and pants that broadcast Sir Paul's personality as a designer. The tide, you sensed, was out on this show.
21 January 2012
Last season, Paul Smith opened his show with a song by Patti Smith, which was appropriate given that her attitude and sense of style resonated through the designer's Fall 2011 collection. This afternoon, the opening track was "All Tomorrow's Parties," by the Velvet Underground. But the music wasn't much of a clue to what followed. This read as something of a brass-tacks collection for Paul Smith—there were a ton of easygoing staple pieces, as well as some winning accessories, but no overarching proposition.The emphasis was on trousers. Smith sent out three key silhouettes: There was a pair of trim, slightly cropped boyish pants and another tailored style that was wider, high-waisted, and shorter; he also showed a pair of slouchy jogging pants in both burgundy silk and the foulard print that threaded through the collection. The jogging pants looked like no-brainers—chic and cozy all at once, and a nice twist on fashion's present pajama trend—and the boyish trousers looked particularly good in plaid and pop colors such as mustard and electric blue. The third style, wide, high-waisted, and short, came off a touch awkward.There were winning pieces studded throughout the show: Soft silk pleated skirts with a touch of sheen, an oversize pajama-stripe button-down, a drop-waist dress in the foulard, and a blouse and trousers in a cool smudged floral print. The accessories are also worth noting: Smith has a hit on his hands with this season's super-flat loafers, and a possible cult phenomenon in wood-heel sandals with contrasting bands of color. He also turned out a seriously chic fedora, done in burgundy wool with a pale coral band.
17 September 2011
Paul Smith has been coloring in his own history over the past few years, building his men's collections on details from his past. And that's always given them a bit of a kick. After his show today, he insisted his latest effort was free of personal reference; maybe that's what was wrong with it. It was an uncharacteristically downbeat affair with no Spring—never mind summer—in its step at all, even with soft leopard-print booties as footwear. Instead, a varsity jacket layered over a tailored blazer felt like a willfully perverse riposte to the thousand-degree heat in the street outside.That kind of contrast seemed like the key to the collection. Sober navy was banded with orange in the opening section. Classic and casual faced off in a blazer layered over an anorak, or a Henley over pegged pants with a dropped crotch (a difficult balance to strike). Shine and matte were combined in a single piece. That hint of a split personality splintered into a prismatic print that was gratifyingly vivid amid Smith's subdued symphony in blue. It harked back to a time when the designer could be relied on to inject some English eccentricity into the international menswear scene. But, according to Smith, sales have never been better. So what's that say for character in clothing?
25 June 2011
From the moment the sound system at Paul Smith's show came up on the opening bars of "Free Money," you had to guess that he had takenJust Kids-era Patti Smith as his muse. And there she was, sort of, in the mannish overcoat draped over the show's very first look. Sort of, because the version of boy dressing for girls that Paul Smith turned out this season was quite a bit nattier than the threadbare androgyny she invented and perfected in the seventies.That's not a complaint: Threadbare isn't really Paul Smith's thing, and it would have looked contrived if he'd gone for a straight-up Patti homage. Instead, he gave his menswear-inspired looks a poppy, preppy polish—throwing that show-opening mannish coat over a polka-dot blazer and rust-colored cropped and cuffed pants, for example, or putting a bright orange waistband on a pair of pinstripe trousers. Smith's trousers are worth dwelling on: For women who aren't entirely convinced by the current wide-leg silhouette, his boyish slacks are a strong alternative. There were the high-waisted narrow pants, cuffed at the ankle, rolled-up cords, slouchy khakis. They all looked great. And there are going to be a lot of takers for Smith's knits, especially standouts like his marled burgundy boyfriend cardigan and bright orange oversized cable sweater.Some of the strongest pieces in the collection saw Smith taking some poetic license with his menswear inspiration, in particular the collarless coats and jackets in men's suiting fabrics, with a heavy top-stitch. There were outright feminine looks as well, such as a series of floral-embroidered pieces a little bit redolent of Christopher Kane's Fall 2010 collection. Smith's floral dresses were different enough that it didn't matter, really, that the look felt a touch familiar; that said, a long, floral-embroidered dress in gray tweed seemed a little ungainly. There were a few other looks that could have been cut—an oversize tuxedo shirt, for example, fit the theme but went against the show's tailored mien, and the little bit of fur here seemed more obligatory than anything else. All in all, though, this was a good collection for Smith—he certainly knows his menswear, and he had no trouble giving it a girlish twist.
20 February 2011
A huge image of a full moon was the backdrop forPaul Smith's catwalk. Its inspiration was Moon Unit Zappa. Seriously! Smith had been reflecting on the appealingly random qualities of her father Frank's music when it occurred to him what a splendidly visual thing a full moon was, which is a random thought in itself. And thus the new Paul Smith collection came into being.If the designer's collections tend to reflect way stations in his own autobiography, you could maybe pin this one down to the post-hippie, pre-glam moment when the sixties met the seventies. It was the era of "Space Oddity," so Smith opened with a silvery quilted parka, ersatz astronautica. He also glazed the leather of a blouson with a spacey sheen. But the suggestion of spaciness soon gave way to aWithnail and Ibaggy cardie vibe, with what felt like haphazard layers of jackets, shirts, and knitwear."Vintage mixed with luxury" was Smith's own label for the look. It embraced the kind of shaggy furs that festivalgoers might have worn at the earliest Glastonbury gatherings, baggy demob pants, speckled thrift-shop tweeds, and oversize granddad coats. But there were also pieces that felt much more contemporary, like a black mohair cardigan jacket, or a quilted parka with a bold monochrome animal print. Kudos to an appropriately random model casting, BTW.
22 January 2011
The story of the menswear designer getting into the women's business generally follows the same arc: Girl wears boy's clothes. Girl wears boy's clothes a lot. Girl gets own collection.That's exactly how it went for Paul Smith 12 years ago, and today he decided to return to his original masculine-feminine womenswear sensibility. It was a welcome homecoming, especially to those who've watched Smith's women's collections wander around the fashion map, searching for a niche to call home. "It looks like you borrowed your boyfriend's shirt, your boyfriend's jacket, your boyfriend's trousers," Smith said backstage.Well, perhaps she borrowed a little more than that. There was a cute gender-bendy wit to striped and dotty shirts tucked into jaunty ankle-cropped trousers, worn with teddy-boy hairdos, cat-eye sunglasses, and clear spectator brogues.Of course, Smith's particular brand of menswear originally appealed to women because it indulged its feminine side with colorful dandy appeal. That took flight here in jeweled iridescent suits and tailored blazers with wide contrasting hems in floral or polka dot, and a whole bucket of Smith's signature royal purple. Even the floral and swirling multicolored print he used in shirtdresses and shifts would be right at home in the lining of a man's suit. Here and there, Smith pushed the showpiece element just a hair too far—a button-down deconstructed into a strapless dress seemed just plain silly, and the jury is still out on the onesie suit. Nevertheless, Smith gets points for a prodigally good show.
19 September 2010
It feels like Paul Smith has spent so long embedded in the early sixties sharp-suited mod end of the London style spectrum that this season's embrace of the rather less structured late sixties was cause for celebration. With Donovan, Hawkwind, and Led Zeppelin on the soundtrack, Sir Paul showed tie-dyed silks, star-studded pants, and a jacket in a tone-on-tone print that looked like the kind of William Morris wallpaper pattern rich hippies used to drool over.Smith caught the mood of that moment, when androgynous boys would shop in antiques markets for old blouses or throw a vintage evening jacket over a T-shirt. He got the shabbiness right, and the colors too, especially a particular shade of maroon. A silver trench looked like a perfectly cosmic coverall. But it's hard to know what a Smith aficionado would make of such a change in direction.
26 June 2010
Sigmund Freud insisted women were a perennial mystery. That wasbeforehe went to a Paul Smith show. Who was this woman, progressing from a sharply tailored hunting jacket (albeit in a lurid yellow) through trad tweed, gray flannel, and florals to a pair of plus fours in aqua-colored plastic? I guess she was kind of a country girl, but someone had clearly laced her punch, because she became progressively more unhinged as the show went on. Admittedly, she was wearing green support hose printed with riding boots from the onset (now there's an economical answer to the cost of shoe leather), but for a while, she almost caught the mood of Madonna in her strict lady-of-the-manor moment. The gray pleated skirt, the gray hacking jacket, the black tailcoat with the plus fours—so muted. But maybe she'd been curled up with Julien Macdonald reading Jilly Cooper'sRiders, because the good country girl came over with a big case of bad. She slipped into a lurid orange cocktail dress and fishnet tights, and sheer gauzy knits that slouched off one shoulder. Then her fishnets had big holes in them, and she was wearing punky red and black striped knits and a full-skirted fifties party dress covered with black netting. And thus we came to those plastic plus fours, which is where we left Sigmund scratching his head.
21 February 2010
Style.com did not review the Fall 2010 menswear collections. Please enjoy the photos, and stay tuned for our complete coverage of the Spring 2011 collections, including reviews of each show by Tim Blanks.
23 January 2010
When Paul Smith laid eyes onGentlemen of Bakongo, a vivid new celebration of the fashion-obsessed Congolese dandies calledsapeurs, he was too inspired to wait for his next menswear show. He immediately modeled his women's collection for Spring 2010 around Daniele Tamagni's photos. In fact, the book's cover was reproduced for the first look: a scaled-down pink suit, orange striped shirt, and red shoes, topped off by an orange bowler. That vividsapeur-istepalette juiced up the show, and the menswear theme kept circling around, in a banker-striped shirt extended into a full dress, say, or the tan suit worn over checked waistcoat, collar, and tie.Artfully swagged dresses in checks and ikats, often with bras or bandeaus worn on the outside, looked like the sort of pieces asapeur's date might wear (they were also reminiscent of old Westwood). And cardigans were tied with equal art around the body to form shape-conscious silhouettes. It was very cute and very young—but quite what it has to do with the eccentric Englishwoman Smith has been courting recently was difficult to see.
20 September 2009
"No theme, just classic English things: a parka, a rose print, Fair Isle, houndstooth, tweed." That was Paul Smith's summary of his latest women's collection. But just as classically English is an eccentric touch: The first outfit featured a Fair Isle sweater dress, a leopard-print scarf, a wide-brimmed hat with a long feather, and a pink-strapped satchel. Or how about an army jacket over a khaki shirt over a lace skirt over leggings? Or a green wool jacket with hot pink epaulets? That particular—and not particularly pleasing—combination of colors dominated the first half of the show. Then the Smith woman enlisted. The designer showed an army sweater dress and an officer's coat-dress and a floor-sweeper for evening in army green. Yards of beads and crystals were trailed through epaulets as a way of dressing up military-influenced basics. Such ingenuity in hard times brought to mind Bevis Hillier'sAusterity/Binge, an early seventies book that was hugely influential in inspiring a reevaluation of postwar style. There was a lot of that style in this collection (a rose-printed mac with a matching full skirt certainly updated the aesthetic), but it still didn't make it entirely clear what Paul Smith's womenswear is supposed to be, beyond an exploration of fashion and personal history.
22 February 2009
There are still plenty of people who question the wisdom of a Paul Smith collection for women. The problem is that womenswear doesn't really play into his strengths, given that his hugely successful menswear line is such an expression of his own appetites and idiosyncrasies. Spring 2009 was inspired by an exhibition of British Orientalist art that just closed at Tate Britain, so there were caftan-inspired long cotton dresses and trousers with the volume of harem pants, and hair and makeup that pointed to a long session in a hammam. A blurred gingham suggested cloth that had been washed and left in the sun. It looked strong in the fitted-then-flaring floor sweeper that closed the show (very Norma Shearer). It was also tiered with floral chiffon in a skirt over a full white petticoat. (There is something so pretty about a full petticoat—a black one also showed up here under a white broderie anglaise dress.)The second major influence on the show was Smith's own tailoring, which meant that an ivory coat with black trim "started out Orientalist, ended up Chanel" (his words). Tailored pieces included a little tap-shorts suit and a cotton drill jacket with a pair of those voluminous pants. While it's unlikely that this new collection will change the minds of the doubters, it was Smith's best edited and most coherent women's show to date.
14 September 2008
Paul Smith is revisiting his life in his collections. Last time, it was the funk soul brothers of the early sixties. Here, it was that moment when acid arrived to puncture everyone's balloons, when people stilllookedstraight, but had psychedelic stuff going on in their heads. It's why the show was called "Cosmic Picnic." And why Pink Floyd was playing as the audience walked in. And why the models were sporting eye makeup that made them look like tripped-out Syd Barretts. But the clothes themselves were a repetitive procession of three-piece suits and casual, tailored cottons. There were stripes, there was seersucker, and the loucheness of a suit and waistcoat worn with nothing underneath but a tee. And there was the occasional hint of ethnicity. But otherwise, Sir Paul stayed pretty close to the visual of the straight-looking acidhead. Still, with the chronology that's unfolding, we might legitimately look forward to the appearance sometime soon of the sprayed-on velvets he used to make for Jimmy Page. Please!
28 June 2008
When he was 21 years old, a little more than 40 years ago, Paul Smith went to Paris for the first time with his wife, Pauline. They soaked up the Gitanes-jazz-and-coffee-bar flavor of the city, took in a couture show or two—if I'm hearing him right—and now, all this time later, his life-changing experience has resurfaced, like a buried memory, to change his approach to womenswear. It seems that the past master of English quirk got all French existential on us this season. Think basic black in a pencil skirt or a tautly tailored coat-dress; think beat in a striped mohair top with a swingy little skirt, or a black bouclé coat paired with cigarette-legged moiré jeans.They were such incongruous associations for Smith that it was a relief to see a woman less Juliette Gréco, more naughty secretary (or some similar dolly bird from anyCarry Onmovie) in a pinstriped blouse with a pinstriped pencil skirt, or a gray topcoat with a hint of petticoat poking through its kick pleat. But there were echoes of another ambassador for fashion existentialism, Miuccia Prada, in the retro florals, with the blouse matching the stockings and the skirt matching the shoes. A combination of green bouclé jacket and orange bouclé dress also had a distinct eau de Miuccia at her bad-taste best.Backstage, Sir Paul was revved by the couture references—something new for him—but let's face it: A sack dress is just a sack, unless it's been blessed by Cristobal Balenciaga's magic touch.
10 February 2008
The time frame for the looks that Paul Smith showed in his latest collection was clearly significant. "My era," he blithely called out as he dashed past backstage, but what exactly was that? His wife Pauline certainly had no clue. She met him in 1967.i-Deditor Terry Jones had a feeling it was sometime pre-mod, when British groovers listened to blues and took their style cues from the classic menswear codes. Glen plaid, tattersall, windowpane and Prince of Wales checks, pinstripes—they were all here. But time—and fabric technology—has moved on, so the fabrics had a lightness and patina that can only be achieved with washing. In the end, however, the collection's underlying theme seemed to be less pre-mod than "How many ways can you serve up a black suit?" Every possible length and trim and arrangement of buttonholes seemed to present itself, so one fell on the eccentric accents (which are, after all, the essence of Sir Paul's success). A zebra belt, a fistful of be-ringed fingers, a leopard-print boot—in this context, they practically blazed. And a gray flannel officer's coat and a croc-stamped leather frock coat felt like preludes to a whole new direction.
19 January 2008
After decades of practice, Sir Paul Smith gives good sound bite. "Hockney meets Bloomsbury" was his succinct summation of his women's collection for Spring. If that evokes a mélange of primary colors and florals with a twist of haute bourgeois eccentricity, then you clearly understand Sir Paul's shorthand. The color was strongest when applied to classic shapes, as evidenced by a cornflower-blue shirtwaist dress, a green parka, and a tomato-red blouse (the matching bow tie a prissy flourish). The elongated proportions of a knee-length cable knit with a dropped half-belt suggested Bloomsbury's bohemian languor, just as a silky floor-sweeping skirt or the floral print on a kimono-ish top hinted at the gardens of Charleston, where Vanessa Bell entertained her sister Virginia Woolf and their coterie.The outfits had the artfully thrown-together quality you might find among the guests at a country house party: Formal and casual elements combined in such looks as a black velvet jacket over white cotton Bermudas, a little gray cardigan pulled over a red shirtwaist, or a blue cummerbund wrapping the waist of tiny shorts under a cardigan jacket. The same notion was elaborated on in a full white tie rig trimmed down to a shawl-collared tap suit, as well as in a rugby shirt stretched to the floor and given dress collar and cuffs. If there was a slightly random quality to the whole affair, you could argue that's always been Smith's charm.
17 September 2007
Paul Smith joined the chorus of designers claiming influence from David Hockney this season (was it the show at London's National Portrait Gallery that stirred interest in the artist?). In Smith's case, though, he could claim a direct connection. His wife Pauline was at college with Hockney, and the two men are friends. So it was Hockney's voice we heard on the soundtrack, and his red-framed glasses, striped jacket, flat cap, bow tie—even his blond hair—that we saw on the catwalk. But Smith was keen not to seem like a Hockney bandwagon-jumper, so he also harked back to his own friends at art college "dressing beautifully with no money," buying striped boating jackets from thrift shops, painting flowers on shoes. And he insisted that his decision to base the collection on primary colors for a change preceded his Hockney moment. Still, there's nothing wrong with being inspired by a colorist as accomplished as Hockney, especially when the inspiration produces such gently winning graphism: green-striped pants with hot-pink sneakers, or a pale-yellow safari suit or a candy-striped blazer. If the presentation itself ultimately felt a little slight, the finale's colorful march-past offered freshness and cheer as perfectly reasonable raisons d'être.
30 June 2007
Paul Smith doesn't really do theme-y collections. Whatever the season, his concept revolves around the brand of modern Britishness he has personally made accessible throughout the world. For Fall, though, he seemed almost inadvertently to have picked up the current twenties vibe in drop-waisted Deco chiffon dresses, long lean cardigans, fluid pants, and the odd shawl-collared Poiret coat. Since these were followed by a section of gamekeeper-check knickers and vests and a khaki WWI greatcoat, it was easy to think, just for a moment, "Aha, of course!Lady Chatterley's Lover," and "What a clever English spin." It was only a flash, though, because after that it was back to the natty pinstripe pantsuits, some randomly misplaced neon knits, and tux tailoring for evening. Not that any of this was a letdown particularly, but by the end, that intriguing D.H. Lawrence moment had vanished from memory among the general merchandise.
12 February 2007
When he bent his mind to his new collection, Paul Smith was thinking about the sons of his friends, boys in their late teens or early twenties who might show up for one of those posh weekend-house parties—a totem of the Smith ethos—with things missing from their kit.Which, in a nutshell, was the new Paul Smith collection—the appropriate vs. the improvised. Crumpled suits might have been pulled straight from the suitcase in which they'd been balled up. A cable-knit rollneck paired with a satin-trimmed jacket was an uneasy compromise between day and night; likewise, the black silk jacket and indigo jeans. A velvet jacket thrown over a T-shirt also embodied the improvised, dressy moment. Smith grabbed the Union Jack and broke it every which way to underline the random spirit of his inspiration: The waistcoat underneath a citron velvet jacket looked surprisingly cool. Elsewhere, the designer fell back on the most traditional elements: pinstripes, plaids, houndstooths, tattersall checks, corduroy. Smart move—there's no point to subversion unless you have the original for reference. The sound track by Pete Smith and Andrew Hale certainly agreed.
27 January 2007
For some reason, there's a bit of an American preppy feeling rising in certain quarters of the English design community. Paul Smith, too, has caught a touch of the nostalgia vibe for clean, conservative, outdoorsy classics. In his hands, it was the perfect excuse to indulge his affection for putting fresh-faced girls in clothes meant for boys.In essence, this was a collection of simple separates—seersucker shorts, navy brass-buttoned blazers, slim pants, and vivid V-neck knits—with the odd pair of Brooks Brothers–type boxers peeking out of the waistlines. Nodding to the trend for shirt-dressing, he showed crisp white cottons and borrowed-from-the-boys pajama checks. Color choices—lavender with raspberry, leaf green with beige—are always a strength in this collection, but there was a lack of Smith's characteristic prints on show. For evening—as evening as this essentially easy collection gets—he used parachute silks floating breezily away from the body. The best bit, though, was the not-quite-right English eccentricity of loafers made in slightly tattered washed silks in pretty pastels.
18 September 2006
When a designer like Jean Paul Gaultier sends two (mis-)matched outfits down the catwalk in tandem, he usually has complex gender issues or some other statement in mind. In the case of Paul Smith's spring/summer show, on the other hand, the pairing up of models mostly seemed like a good excuse to double the amount of merchandise on display. That's Smith for you—a born (and brilliant) merchant.The passing parade of twins, brothers, and looky-likeys gave the audience the chance to compare and contrast smooth and rough versions of the same item: here, the jeans in white, there in indigo; here the shirt with the collar, there without; here the linen knit in a crewneck, there in a cardigan; and so on. Amid such a volume of clothes, the standouts were the outfits that best expressed Smith's sparky casualness: a blanket-stitched suede shirt-jacket paired with camo shorts; plaid pants with an army-green shirt in fine cotton; seersucker trousers with shirts in a sprigged-floral print.It's perhaps worth noting that this collection was the last for creative director Hakan Rosenius, who is departing for Asprey after 23 years at Smith's side. It was a suitably subtle swan song for such an unflashily successful collaboration.
3 July 2006
In a season when people are talking about a return to tailoring, Paul Smith chose his moment to launch a new line of men's suiting, shirts, coats, and brogues rescaled to fit girls. Men Only, as it's ironically called, was inspired by a line of Katharine Hepburn's: "A woman can't always do what she needs in stockings." What a woman needs was clear from the first look: an easily cut brown pantsuit with a blue-and-white striped shirt, beige cardigan, and loafers.The idea of Smith making a seasonal return to tailoring is a bit laughable, of course, because it's been the bedrock of his business for decades. Making well-cut jackets and trousers is a fine art that isn't learned overnight, and Smith is a man who knows what he's doing. Close up, the detail he lavishes on such things as linings and cuffs makes this collection a delightful and trusty resource for everyday pieces. The show might have played this trump card a bit more strongly, though. In the end, the emphasis was skewed more toward Smith's eternally soft spot for a sexy bluestocking. Flocks of girls in glasses, wearing panne velvet polka-dot dresses and other vintage-inspired frocks overwhelmed the tailoring. But never mind, it's nice to know it's there.
14 February 2006
"Everyone's been doing rock 'n' roll [but] we shouldn't forget the cowboy," Paul Smith said after his show, citing Paul Newman and Clint Eastwood as icons of cowpoke masculinity. Smith, though, is English to the roots of his spectacular mane of hair, so the collection we had just witnessed was more Savile Row-deo than Home on the Range.That said, the Wild West and the West End shared a sleeping bag with surprising ease. The slightly Edwardian edge of cowboy tailoring sits well with English pinstripes and plaids. A shirt with Western detailing juiced up a suit in dark-gray flannel, and a pinstripe lining loaned some urban gravitas to a floor-sweeping duster.The big city-big country combination yielded the occasional oddity (one tailored jacket featured a tapestry depiction of what looked likeThe Last Roundup). More often, though, the Western elements—a cowboy's belt buckle worn with striped pants, or the Indian beading on cotton shirts—showed how a regular guy can add some vital idiosyncrasy to his wardrobe.
28 January 2006
Did that jolly good chap Paul Smith spend his summer fitting in a bit of work while glued to the cricket on TV? Why not? That's exactly what every other red-blooded British male was up to these past months when (as the rest of the world may not have noticed) England thrashed Australia in the Ashes, for the first time in, oh,yonks. At any rate, that's one excuse for the cricket whites—big cotton cable-knit sweaters and baggy pants—that turned up in his summer collection, albeit in girlish shapes and with saucy details, like satin and lace underwear, doodled in along the way.It's nice to see Smith so relaxed designing clothes for women. A menswear designer first, it took a while for him to get into what now comes naturally: making stuff an uncomplicated bloke could fancy a good girl wearing. Thus, there was a lot of mild fantasy play going on around what a girlfriend might look like in a man's bib-front shirt, say, or perhaps a virginal, cut-work linen nightie over boxer shorts. After that, the reverie floated on to summery smocks and sprigged floral prints ideal for garden parties and, with a bit of luck, a little hanky-panky behind the bushes. It's all harmless, clean living fun, of course. Nothing much to do with the busy, thrusting thoroughfares of fashion progress either—but that's exactly what Paul Smith has dedicated himself to avoiding.
19 September 2005
Paul Smith claimed that after three seasons of rock 'n' roll, he wanted people to calm down. So, to the tune of the easy-listening classic "Theme from A Summer Place," he imagined his young men coming to Grandmother's house in the country to open it up for the season. They were a dressed-up lot in their ties and pocket squares, their pastel-toned jackets (with buttoned double-vents) and cuffed linen trousers, their candy-colored stripes and muted florals. The bright ethnic touches that usually illuminate Smith's collections were absent this season (though Sir Paul does love his chunky belt buckles).Instead, it was Granny's interiors that had some influence on the clothes, with prints based on wallpaper patterns and embroidery drawn from cushion covers. This looked sensational in the form of hummingbirds, flowers, and butterflies on the background of a crisp white cotton shirt. In fact, all the embroidered, appliquéd white shirts in the final group were irresistible. Their serene purity hinted at genteel luxury (you'd need Granny's housekeeper to keep a white shirt looking starched like that). Smith did allow himself one blast from his rockin' past: Bowie's "Rebel, Rebel" played on the soundtrack. But it was in a lilting, sun-dappled version fromThe Life Aquaticsoundtrack by Brazilian folk singer Seu Jorge.
7 July 2005
The great thing about Paul Smith is that he's incapable of growing up—even though he's Britain's most successful senior designer and fully furnished with a knighthood, to boot. His perennially youthful eye gives his best collections a tomboyish naturalness that manages to capture the essence of the arty English student way of dressing. No need for Sir Paul to trawl reverently through reference books for sixties inspiration. Like the Beatles, he was there, and now that there's a new generation in love with vintage, he's absolutely at home in the English time zone of mod meets hippie."What really set me off was the 18-year-old daughters of friends who are coming in on work placement … and thinking of all the great things they'd love to wear from their fiftysomething mother's wardrobes," said the designer. So out came the little Empire-line dresses, the mini capes, the narrow boy-tailored plaid pants, the drainpipe jeans, and the stripy knit college scarves. Styled with great-looking low-heel, square-toe Mary Janes and woolly colored tights, the collection was a breezy run-through of Paul Smith's signature items, from tailored trousers to cheerful argyle knits, polished off with a couple of panne velvet flower-embroidered caftan dresses that any 18-year-old would kill for.
13 February 2005
The set looked like the back of a club (brick wall, crates of empties), the front-row seating was the same mix of cheap chairs you'd find in a bar, the set list on each of those chairs promised a crash course in new English rock. And when Will Chalker marched out in python pants, Paul Smith had made it official: we were a long way (thank God) from last season's rosy-cheeked schoolboys. Those python pants were belted in leopard print, paired with zebra booties, a check jacket and waistcoat, a shirt with an elaborate print derived from an old wallpaper pattern, and a floral tie to finish it off. All in all, a riotously uplifting assemblage.Dissect this hodgepodge of color and texture and there is plenty to crave. For the dandy, the rust ponyskin jacket, perhaps, or the big sweaters based on Afghani carpet patterns (a last-season inspiration that clearly still has legs). For the more subdued gent, a houndstooth topcoat or a pair of plaid pants. The full spectrum of the show could be encompassed by this contrast: the pink sweater over a lilac gingham shirt versus the leather biker's vest under a black velvet jacket. Dressing up with spine and spunk—that was the ticket to a collection that added some necessary lead to Mr. Smith's pencil.
29 January 2005
Paul Smith is very much on his own turf this season. A cheerful English gent, he's always secretly been enamored of well-brought-up girls, flower gardens, and a bit of cheeky fun. At the beginning of his show, Lily Cole—the 16-year-old redheaded London schoolgirl—strode out in a little blue-and-white Liberty print cotton trench, the very embodiment of those very British ideas. Cole was followed by a lineup of little pastel tweed jackets with contrast linings, seed-packet floral prints, and cardigans. One dress looked as if it had a fifties apron incorporated into it—perhaps for making tea to take out onto the extensive lawn Mr. Smith had laid out for the occasion.Couldn't be perkier or more of the moment, of course. At a time when the entire fashion world is playing with ideas of eccentricity and ladylike virtues, Smith is well within his fashion comfort zone, though he hasn't lost his soft spot for tomboys. His trim little pantsuits with African-print pork-pie hats looked just spiffy. Come the evening, though, this collection was never quite sure where to go. Thigh-slit variations on cheongsams didn't really do it, but never mind. Smith's designs are more about innocent laughter on a sunny afternoon, and that's how it should be.
19 September 2004
The English student, one of spring 2005's biggest fashion influences, achieved apotheosis at the hands of Paul Smith, the designer who's dressed enough young Brits to know. Smith's show saluted "Eton Gods," schoolboys who fancy themselves as rock 'n' roll deities. Chunky ethnic belts with "Appollo" and Zeus picked out in studs underlined the message, but aside from such exotically rough accessories, the modern rock god is a delicate thing. Jackets, shirts, and trousers were noticeably narrowed for a boyish silhouette. The layering of T-shirts, short sleeves, and thin sweaters also had enough of a skinny teen feel that a print of rampant bulls on a blue top felt somehow ironic. Apparently, loyal fans have been wondering where the florals that are such a big part of the Paul Smith story have gone of late. Never fear, they're here! Carnation-printed shirt jackets looked fresh, and there was an orgy of blooms tucked away under all those pinstripes. But the real oomph was reserved for a group of bright jackets embroidered with patterns from Afghan carpets. Nowthoserocked!
3 July 2004
There’s still a boyish quality to Paul Smith, even though he’s a “Sir” now—not to mention the most financially successful Brit designer ever, and something of a national treasure to boot. Smith’s ability to play games with old English classics—deflating pomposity with color and wit, while never looking like he’s trying too hard—is what’s made him a worldwide hit in menswear, and guess what? That’s exactly how it works best for girls, too.In a season when crisp shirts and V-neck sweaters are news again, Smith is in his element, having fun with stripes and ties, and turning school uniform-style fine-gauge knits into skimpy dresses. Cut close to the body, his suits, with their bracelet-length sleeves and their skirts caught up in a ruched detail in the back, are just naughty enough to avoid any teacher’s-pet primness. The designer also worked his blue-and-white shirting stripes into little camisole-top cotton dresses, and made printed silk scarves—that other bastion of ladylike dressing—into bright camisoles and strappy shifts. It added up to a happy, easy-to-shop collection that worked best when Sir Paul seemed to be designing off the cuff.
21 September 2003
Sir Paul Smith hasn’t put on airs and graces since receiving his knighthood, though he’s London’s most financially successful designer. When he turns his attention to women’s wear, however, his clothes always look like the work of a cheeky lad out to charm the cleverest girl at art school into bed.For fall, he gathered ideas during a whistle-stop world tour that started in Moscow and ended in New York, where he saw an exhibit of Russian Constructivist book design. The latter inspired the thread-trailing disk-and-stripe appliqu¿s on the frayed tweeds that opened the show, and throughout the collection he used geometric or leaf prints—although in a post-revolutionary palette of yellow, green, pink and black—to unify his theme. This was no propaganda overhaul, though. Smith can’t resist tinkering with his old favorites: school uniforms, delinquent debutantes’ partywear and the lexicon of gentleman’s attire on which he founded his name.Those appeared this season as dippy asymmetric raw-edged kilts, striped school blazers and scarves, vaguely ’30s satin print dresses and embroidered kimonos suitable for a sexy intellectual. Occasionally the collection took a turn into corporate branding, as when his signature swirly print appeared in chiffon and chain-mail dresses or branched off disconcertingly into embroidered black leather. The most amusing moment came when Sir Paul sent out his men’s shirts, buttoned all askew and back to front, with sleeves knotted to mimic bustles or thrown over the shoulder like a one-strap dress. It was a vision of morning-after wear in the bedroom of the (evidently successful) boyfriend.
18 February 2003
Rock ’n’ roll softened by English quirkiness. That’s the essence of Paul Smith’s spring collection. Showing to a soundtrack of Stones and Rod Stewart oldies, the designer playfully rearranged an anthology of rock-chick classics, from a Keith Richards-esque black topcoat to leather jeans, micro shorts and vests to pointy, pink vintage bras and hoodies, strung about with punky chains.Smith’s not really a man for the tough girls, though, and his cheeky sense of humor undercut the show’s harder edge. Never able to resist putting in a pun somewhere, he referenced his menswear background by sewing together ties to form skirts. He left his boyish tailoring raw at the edges and turned men’s formal white piqué dress shirts, complete with undone dickey bows, into dresses. When he finally indulged his nostalgic leanings by sending out tiny-rosebud and tablecloth prints, the vibe had reverted from a backstage Jack Daniels binge for the groupies to a 1950s English tea party on a summer afternoon. Isn’t Sir Paul nice?
12 September 2002