Paul on… Starting Strong & Growing Gently

I like being my own boss. I think it’s very important in design especially to be design-led, and not be led by the bottom line, the profits, and have the shareholders looking over your shoulder. It’s very dangerous.

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BBC Radio 4: Desert Island Discs (01:48) View source
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Starting Strong & Growing Gently

You don’t need much money to start a business, but you do need time. Making sure you have a solid foundation will let you grow steadily for many years to come.

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Paul on… Starting Strong & Growing Gently

It started very modestly with my wife and I, with a small amount of savings. It’s always just grown very organically and now we employ a thousand people just in Europe. The clothes sell and people like them; and not just because we give them away, or because we have celebrity front rows, or because we spend €80 million a year on advertising. We just do what we do, and hopefully it continues to do well.

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Paul on… Starting Strong & Growing Gently

The lovely thing about Paul Smith is it’s been real, honest, natural growth. In today’s world it’s all about borrowing lots of money but we’re very old school: we put any money we earned back in the business, so it grew very gently. The business is still run with a heart. We have to be financially motivated to survive, but it’s balanced out with good manners, customer service and people enjoying the experience of going into the shop.

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Paul on… Starting Strong & Growing Gently

We’ve always just let it flow. We’ve never really tried to invent anything. It’s a company which is still run from the heart. Almost every week you’ll find me in my Albemarle Street shop in Mayfair, and the conversation that I have with customers is always the same, they talk about the continuity and consistency of the company.

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Paul on… Starting Strong & Growing Gently

A shop can be as humble as you like. I started in a 12ft square room with no windows. You could even just sell to a few mates at first. Don’t worry about starting up here, especially in today’s false climate. Be humble, keep your feet on the ground, and you’ll do well.

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Paul on… Starting Strong & Growing Gently

The problem is that the world is moving so fast and there’s such a need to take money, especially if you’re working for a public company. Often you just turn to the lowest common denominator. You spend a lot of money on extreme promotion and it’s just a cop-out, it’s just a fast buck. It’s a bit disappointing. You just would hope that young designers would try to be a bit more creative in their own right.

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Paul on… Starting Strong & Growing Gently

I like being my own boss. I think it’s very important in design especially to be design-led, and not be led by the bottom line, the profits, and have the shareholders looking over your shoulder. It’s very dangerous.

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Paul on… Starting Strong & Growing Gently

You need to give things time and then you build a good foundation.

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Paul on… Starting Strong & Growing Gently

In the beginning, it was just about owning a shop focused on self-expression and quite a lot of the clothes were made by Pauline or myself. We have never been people who aspire to jets or chauffeur-driven cars. We’re just very at ease with life, and love and health. Just doing normal things.

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Paul on… Starting Strong & Growing Gently

The reason why Paul Smith the brand is successful is because it has real character. My company doesn’t make huge profits, but I’m the boss and I make the decisions. The privilege of that freedom is priceless.

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Paul on… Starting Strong & Growing Gently

In the early days, we were constrained by sheer necessity. And necessity is how the DNA of Paul Smith really began.

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