The new boy at Paul Smith: Sir Paul Smith
FASHION designer Sir Paul Smith has returned to the shop floor at the age of 71 to ‘recapture the spirit’ of his clothing and lifestyle brand after a dramatic fall in profits.
He had intended to take a back seat and hand over the job of design guru to younger talent, but that experiment didn’t work out and Sir Paul has taken back the role of creative director himself at the label he founded in 1970.
Not only that, he is working Saturday shifts in his Albermarle Street store in London’s Mayfair.
‘I am totally involved in every aspect of design again, whereas I’d eased out a bit to readjust and see whether we could do things in a different way,’ he said. ‘But it worked out that it was better for me to do things the way I’ve always done. The spirit and the design aesthetic of Paul Smith is well and truly back. The boss is back.’
He added, in an interview with fashion industry bible Women’s Wear Daily, that working in his shop on Saturdays is ‘fantastic’.
‘ On a Saturday you can have somebody from Athens, Paris, Milan, Beverly Hills, Tokyo and Denmark,’ he said.
Sir Paul previously hired the company’s first creative director to allow him to work on other brand-related projects but he has now assumed the role himself.
Known for his classic British designs with a twist, he has styled Sir Bradley Wiggins, David Bowie and the England football team. Lon- don’s Design Museum staged a retrospective of his work i n 2013. However, the company, like other luxury brands, has had a tougher time recently and Sir Paul has overhauled the business, shutting down stores including a flagship on Fifth Avenue in New York and his first ever shop, in Byard Lane, in his native Nottingham, after almost 50 years of trading.
‘We knew we had to go backwards to go forwards, and we did,’ said Sir Paul, who was knighted for services to fashion in 2000. ‘Nobody likes to go backwards – which we did for a couple of years – but the reorganisation has just come to fruition now. You can’t be so arrogant to think that these things don’t apply to you.’
He has reduced the number of design lines from seven to two, invested in online sales growth and opened new stores in Birmingham and Manchester. Shops in Berlin and London’s King’s Cross are opening
in the next few months while 70 in Japan are being revamped.
Pre-tax profits at the group, which is majority- owned by Sir Paul, plunged by more than 70 per cent last year from £ 11.1 million to £2.9 million, according to accounts just filed. Shareholders’ dividend was £1.9 million, less than half the £4.4 million of the previous year.
Sir Paul said his revamp is already bearing fruit as his label has rung up the best retail sales he has seen for five years since the summer.
He remains passionate about tailoring and omitted sportswear from a recent show in Paris. ‘I thought that what I should do is show Paul Smith, which is about beautiful tail oring and coats for men and women, very nice fabrics, and a lot of British fabrics,’ he said.