can expect; where the King rules with wisdom and quirkiness for the joy of living, side by side with his beloved Queen, and humor and kindness still prevail despite success and fame. And if I were to take a flight to London, meet him in his office full of odds and sods and take a walk with him, I’m quite sure I’d be back to that summer feeling, wandering around with a friend and making another day count. For it’s been an honor and a pleasure to get to know the extraordinary and inspiring Sir Paul Smith.But you be the judge.

Everyday is a new beginning. I marked your words. And this is how I begin every day. First of all I pour my black coffee into a baked clay cup I bought from a monk when I was a kid. I make my breakfast in a wooden bowl and then I need silence, which is a luxury in a city. A song then, drums, strings, piano, sax, hang, trumpets, typewriters. It goes with the mood. I take my time to imagine, to wonder, and to daydream. That’s the key in becoming me, every morning, when everything begins. Christopher Isherwood beautifully wrote about the becoming part in his novel “A Single Man”.What does it take to become Sir Paul Smith every morning? Do you have any rituals or habits?

It’s been almost ten years. I still remember my first thought, once I landed. I’m home. Everything everyone’s ever said to me about Brits before, they could put that in their pipes and smoke it. I was with my best friend. We didn’t even try to act like tourists.We didn’t feel like ones. We lived there, each day as explorers of the world, looking and seeing. We wander around the whole time

and whatever we found, whatever we discovered, whatever we experienced made each and one of those days count. That summer in London, I will never forget. In the middle of it I had to fly back to my actual home, though. There was a wedding and I was wearing his pants. Paul Smith pants. I didn’t know much about him back then. I just liked the pants. I put them on, they felt right. I thought it was weird to find colored stripes somewhere hidden. And that just made me like them more. They suited me perfectly. So I bought them and that day I wore them. And since then I wore them out. Almost ten years later, oddly enough, I find myself having a chat with the man behind those stripes. Everybody knows his stripes. This Brit has come a long way from his first shop, Paul Smith Vêtement Pour Homme on 10 Byard Lane, Nottingham. Brick by brick he has built his eponymous fashion brand.A kingdom based on good old values where a twist is the least you

INTERVIEW PAOLO MARINELLIPHOTO LOWE H SEGER

PAULSMITH

The main thing about that is, the world is a very crazy place with a lot of bad things happening so, my little sentence, everyday is a new beginning, is about having a positive spirit and just doing the best in the situation you can; it’s about just having a lovely, positive spirit. I swim every morning; I think I started in 1992, around 5.15-5.30, that’s my ritual. I don’t really swim for very long and I’m not a very good swimmer but I just enjoy the time in the pool. I take the time to start the day off in a tranquil way and also to give my body a nice stretch, a good wake up.

Paul was a kid who wanted to be a racing cyclist before a bad accident put an end to that dream and opened the door for another to begin. Let’s take a ride and go back in time, shall we? What was it that drew you to cycling?

The simple thing was that I got bought a very nice bicycle and that I joined the local cycle club. It was the first time I’ve done anything independently of my parents. There was this unique feeling about looking around and seeing no parents there and it was quite exciting. And at the age of 12 I started racing, first as a schoolboy and eventually in the junior category. The other thing about cycling was the feeling of the wind in your face as you’re cycling along, the open spaces, and the sound of the tires and the sense of freedom. And I still enjoy that very much today.

Off the bike now and back to the present. Is there something in common with what you do today in this totally different, and back then, unknown world?

Racing was really interesting because I learned about working as a team; it was the first time I really stopped just being an independent person and started working more as a team. That really helped me in my job because I have thousands of people working for me now and obviously I have to understand people’s strengths and people’s weaknesses and try to encourage them to be focused and so on. You can draw parallels with racing. Like at the moment you have the “Giro d’Italia” in Italy and all the big teams have to work for the team leader; it’s natural understanding about the days with the mountains, the days with the flat road and in my job it’s in fact the same. I have to think about design, fashion shows, new shops, production, many, many things and it’s very similar to working as a team.

You are chief executive, principal shareholder and chief designer of the eponymous fashion brand you started in the Seventies.

I have many hats, “cappelli” haha!

Yes, that’s correct! I respect that, I’m genuinely impressed and I admire you for that. But beyond that, truth be told, some other things about you struck me. First, what motivates you is the joy of life. Strip that up and give it away. What a world would that be! Second, you met the love of your life like fifty years ago and you never let go of it. Pauline. You fill me with the joy of knowing that love does still exist every time you even just mention her. Third, you don’t email. Letters. Handwriting. The wait. Bloody hell, what have we lost!

Yes, well I mean, I’m a very positive person, I’ve been positive all my life and I’ve been very blessed with being a calm personality, very down to earth and I hope that came from my father. My father was a very easy to talk to man and even though

he passed away when he was 94yo he still had a lot of young friends. That sort of indicated to me that he was somebody who had the ability to be interesting and interested. He could listen and he could talk. And about my wife, she is also a big inspiration in terms of culture and also she was my original teacher of understanding fashion even though I didn’t go to Fashion College or University. She taught me. Those two people are a big influence and I, as the CEO of the company, manage to be able to, as I said earlier, wear many hats in one day. I’ve already spoken to Australia this morning, I’ve spoken to my office in Tokyo, I’ve had my photographs taken for your magazine, I’ve had a meeting with some of the shop staff so everyday, every hour is different and it’s an interesting life.

And it’s not even noon! And about handwriting, is it true you don’t have an email?

Absolutely no, I have no email. Can you imagine if I had an email? I’d never do any work! I always have a notebook in my pocket and a pen so I can write notes and also draw. I’m very lucky because I get many people sending me messages, letters, gifts from around the World and if there’s an address on the article they send, I always try to send a thank you. And I always do that with handwriting on a postcard. I think handwriting is really interesting because you can express yourself very easily with colored ink or with drawings or big or small writing and I think it’s something you can enjoy to keep while an email is very efficient but it’s not very personal.

Well-made, good quality, simple cuts, interesting fabrics, easy to wear, brilliant colors and those stripes! These are Paul Smith’s designs. And then the brutishness: the classic with a twist, the

contagious good vibes, the unexpected and even the humor. This is Paul Smith himself. Is it fair to say that your company and your persona are a truthful reflection of yourself?

I think the classic with a twist definitely. The fact that a lot of the clothes are very wearable but also have a sense of fun or a sense of humor about them, through an interesting lining or an unusual color combination, that’s really very much like me personally. I’m very correct to people, I’m very easy to talk to, I’m not confrontational as a person and I’m well mannered. So I think the clothes, generally speaking, are very assimilate to my personality. Of course, the difficult thing is, as you grow as a company, now we’re selling in 73 countries, sometimes it’s difficult to stay totally true to your focus because there are certain requirements in certain countries that are not natural to you like very hot countries or very humid countries or very new countries to fashion, etc. you have to be a bit flexible but generally I think I stay with my character.

About your collection, I know that you are already on the next thing, things probably, a question more about all the collections. It appears to me that your clothes don’t seem to tell about you through the ones who wear them but more to give men chances to tell about

themselves through your clothes. You offer opportunities for self-expressions more than static total looks. Am I right?

That’s what I hope! I think that’s a really good observation you make and I hope it’s true, I think it’s true. With a lot of fashion designers’ clothes, especially if they have a lot of publicity, the clothes wear you; you do not wear the clothes. You become a Chanel person or a Prada person. With Paul Smith I hope you are you. Whatever your character is, you can dress in Paul

Smith and still have quite an anonymous look and that can show if you have humor or character or if you are creative because it’s very much about the way you coordinate the clothes, which is a reflection of your personality.

My aunt is a tailor. She took me in when I was three or something and raised me on her own in this very small town. She still remembers the days back when she used to take the bus and get to the nearest city and basically cut her teeth. Learn the basics, old fashion training. The one that was really about how you make clothes, quality, shapes, cuts, proportions. Along with humility, perseverance, hard work and patience. Once she had that solid basis, once she knew her stuff, she built from there her future. Brick by brick. But today this fast racing, fame obsessed, money poisoned environment pushes people to try to skip that aiming for ephemeral success, fifteen minutes fame, fleeting incomes at best. How did we get here?

That was so important! Unfortunately, the world has changed so enormously recently because of the communication of the Internet and Twitter and Facebook, etc. and everybody’s knowing what happens all the time and it means that so many people are comparing their lives to somebody’s they’re interested in or a celebrity and I think that’s very detrimental to their lives. The way you describe the beginning of your sentence, I love that, I think it’s fantastic and if you have a solid basis, you can slowly build. Paul Smith was started with a very small amount of money and with just my wife and it’s grown very gently and very carefully. We never had any borrowing from banks, so it’s very solid. We have very old fashion values, like we’re still very cautious about expansion. But today unfortunately, I was just reading in the newspaper this morning about an English footballer and his ridiculous demands for how much money he wants to earn: that is so dangerous. The fact that they send out such a negative message to young people because young people think they need to get somewhere really fast and not necessarily work at academic studies but maybe just music or sport and so it’s a very changing world, which is not necessarily a good one.

She eventually chose to work at home in her small atelier. Every customer sooner or later became a friend. I still remember sitting on the steps and listening to the hubbub. So amusing. You seem to be like that. You talk to everybody, you visit your shops, you manage to maintain this kind, open, friendly attitude even though you’ve come a long way from your first shop, Paul Smith Vêtement Pour Homme on 10 Byard Lane, Nottingham. Besides being admirable, do you see it as strength for you, for your business?

It’s absolutely true and they’re all comparisons of course with what you say and I think in my case it’s just something, which came very naturally, it’s never been a conscious thing. I’m more surprised when people are not like me because they have a big distance between themselves and their staff. Many designers become very elitist, very like snobbish and they also tend to isolate themselves and often the cases are they have a successful short time and then the success deteriorates because they lose sight of the person that’s paying their wages, which is, of course, the customer. Personally I really enjoy meeting people. They could be young people or old people or school children or famous people and I’d just think it’s interesting. I think a lot of people have missed the point about life and they’re looking for celebrity or fame or money and that doesn’t bring happiness, it doesn’t necessarily bring health and also it often brings insecurity; it’s a shame that

more people don’t realize and understand that.

At the end of the day, with her working on her chair and me reading by the fireplace, there would always come the time when I would look at her and find her asleep on that very same chair in some funny position. And she would always still have her needle in her hand, pointing up.

Oh, wonderful!

I would then awake her and we would both laugh. And then she

would reprise her work. Never complaining, always smiling and simply showing me how lucky, how privileged and how grateful it feels to find that something you love to do, pursue it and do it. Do you still feel the same?

I absolutely do, yes. I mean the only difficult thing for my job now is that the world has become so over distributed with products, not just clothes but many things and there are too many shops and too many cars, too many hotels, too many restaurants and so therefore it’s not easy to be so relaxed about it as it used to be because the competition is so huge. With somebody like your aunt, it is so wonderful that she could keep so humble and so down to earth.

I asked my aunt once why didn’t she try to buy her own shop or create a line and her answer was the twist that makes her unique.

The mountain, the rock climbing, the long walks, the skiing and the

ice climbing. She could never have given that up, for what? More money? Nah. She found her balance. She had her career figured out but she also knew that she had to run away whenever she needed to in order to keep her purity. Balance and purity are two concepts that you seem to value very much. Isn’t that so?

Absolutely! We have such similarities, your aunt and myself and if only we could teach people those simple everyday things are real joys as well as more superficial things! But with the bombardment we get daily of comparisons that are unfortunately a very difficult thing to do.

You are surely one of a kind. So what about individuality?

Right now, in my opinion, individuality is one of the most important things in the entire world of business. Many brands are looking so similar, many brands have too many shops, too much distribution and over distribution of products and there’s many good clothes around the world now, a huge quantity of very acceptable, good clothes; I think one of the helpful things is if you can have a point of view and if you can be individual in that way hopefully you can get to customers that are not just attracted by your clothes but also interested in your personal lifestyle or the individuality of your shops.My shops, each shop around the world, Milan, Paris, Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, each one has a different appearance whereas so many of the big brands shops are more or less the same; that unfortunately is creating main streets of major cities looking so similar everywhere you go and along with the horrible high rents that the property owners and landlords have, it’s telling the character of many streets around the World. For instance in Milan you used to find on Montenapoleone from delicatessen to a simple socks shop to Lorenzi’s knifes shop or nice coffee shops but now, really, the whole street is full of fashion designers.It’s very different from what it used to be.

words can create lots of bad actions from people. I think you have to try to have enough confidence to just be a nice person but it’s not so easy for lots of people.

On the other hand we have the silver lining. The heroes that I love

the most are the ones that are brave enough to live in this world,

fully. Walk, gracefully. Laugh, brightly. And love, deeply. If I add the definition of hero itself, a hero is a person who is admired for courage, outstanding achievements or noble qualities; Queen Elizabeth II also knighted you. Let’s face it; you are a modern hero!

Obviously it’s quite egotistical to say yes but I think within a certain group of people I’m more like what in English we say role model. I’m quite down to earth, I’ve had success in the business but I’m still very approachable; I would say not necessarily a hero but a role model and I think that’s true, yes.

Your story is truly inspiring and you do have many stories to tell. I’m done with questions so let the last one be a story of yours.

I was on an airplane yesterday and three different passengers on the airplane came up to me at different points and said: “I’m very sorry to trouble you but are you Paul Smith?” and I said yes. Two of them just wanted to say hello and that they like what I do and then the third one said that he was a school teacher with twelve and thirteen year old children and that he’d seen me on the television this week and that he advised all his school children to look at the program because the way I look at things, the way I discuss things he thought it’d be very encouraging for the children. So I think my ability to be able to touch the lives of just very ordinary people or people that are just starting out is very satisfying. And maybe the last thing to tell you is that when I get up in the morning, I get up around five o’clock, and Pauline is still asleep, I creep downstairs and then I go off for my swim and after I come out of the swimming pool, normally the first person I speak to is a man which is sweeping the road, a road sweeper. I speak with him, and he talks to me. I don’t know his name, he doesn’t know my name and recently he said to me: “You are the only person that speaks to me”; unfortunately, as a human being on this Earth, we think that his job is a very low job and maybe people don’t think he’s somebody they should talk to but I can tell you that he’s really a fantastically interesting man. He comes from Poland and actually he is trained as a male nurse in the hospital and he’s just here to earn extra money for his family. So we shouldn’t always go on fake values and we shouldn’t always go on status or family associations but we should try to understand that we’re all human beings and that everybody should have a chance.

Also look and see seems to be your sort of mantra. Enlighten me. What has to be understood about it? And what do you think people are missing these days? Can you teach us how to look and see? That would be beautiful.

That’s an enormous worry for me because so many people, especially of the younger generation, are spending nearly all their time in front of computer screens or walking along the road texting or going out for a lovely meal with a girlfriend or a wife or a friend and spending the whole time looking at their telephones. This totally, completely amazes me. It’s astounding to me, absolutely astounding because nothing could be that important. To me it seems to show the fact that they are insecure and also they are not comfortable with silence or they’re not comfortable with interesting conversation. In Greece, if you go to a small island you’ll see the elderly gentlemen sitting by the harbor in the cafes and they’ll be playing with something which is called a worry bead; it’s like a small necklace and they play with it in their hands all the time and I think the telephone now is like the modern day worry bead. It’s something that people, instead of smoking or instead of playing with something like worry beads; they have to have in the hand. It’s almost like when you are a baby and you have a pacifier, a dummy in your mouth. What worries me is that the everyday joy of looking and the everyday joy of normal conversation, eye contact, body language, all those things potentially could really not disappear but be reduced and as a creative person you need to train your eyes to look and see and not just look. Many fashion brands are just looking at magazines and what other brands are doing but in fact if you can train your eyes to look and see you can find the joy in the shadows, in dark and light, small and big, rough and smooth, graffiti, texture of a wall, all those things could be very inspiring but you have to understand about seeing not just looking.

John Green wrote that “the real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people noticing things, paying attention”. Once again, with more feeling, look and see. Pay attention. Notice. But this is for this issue’s theme. Hero. I believe that people are the wonders of this world, and the heroes of this time. Who would you call a hero?

Hero is a very difficult thing to define because your auntie could be your hero and mothers and brothers, it’s not necessarily a famous person, it’s not necessarily a celebrity, it could be just somebody who cares, somebody who has the ability to listen and to be interested and interesting and knowing when to talk and knowing when to listen. So I can’t really tell you one person but it could be somebody who you see everyday, who’s got that carrying personality.

The whole concept of hero speaks to me both about greatness and extreme sadness. We have no dragons, nor demons, nor monsters. Maybe the sword that killed the dragon has now been passed down to, I don’t know, the people who save the people from diseases. But most of the time, it’s just us. We have only us, humans. And when there’s a villain, it’s a person that does harm of his or her own free will. For that reason, as evolved as we claim to be, is still beyond us all. Why is that? Why do we fail in being kind, compassionate and basically decent to one another?

I think the problem is in all of history we suffered from jealousy, greed, insecurity and unfortunately those three