Paul Smith memoir reveals the habits behind his success — SkimNews
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- Threads: My Life in Style, inspired partly by Smith turning 80, recounts how a cycling crash at 17 ended his sporting ambitions and led him toward fashion.
- Paul Smith used rubber chickens in Japan from 1982 to bridge language gaps through gestures, drawings and humour; Japan now has more than 20 Paul Smith stores.
- Paul Smith opened his first windowless Nottingham shop in 1970 and took £38 on day one, beginning the growth of a business now spanning 50 countries.
- Paul Smith says his thread-based stripes first appeared in the spring 1992 range, returned because customers demanded them and have remained a signature for 35 years.
- George Best often escaped to Smith’s spare bedroom on Fridays, where the pair ate fish and chips while Smith shielded the footballer from a stressful celebrity environment.
- David Bowie befriended Smith in the 1980s and later commissioned him to design a T-shirt accompanying the singer’s final album, Black Star.
- The 1974 Beano Annual became Smith’s 1992 Desert Island Discs choice because it contained 16 pages of Roger the Dodger, reflecting the dyslexic designer’s admitted difficulty reading.
Why it matters: For aspiring fashion designers, Smith’s account offers a grounded model: he opened a windowless Nottingham shop in 1970 and took £38 on day one, yet built a company spanning 50 countries while advocating patient, careful growth over rapid expansion instead.
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