Hello I'm Krestey Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1992,

and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a designer. He's introduced us to the filer facts and boxer shorts and put men back in suits.

He began his career in Nottingham in the 60s working in the rag trade. Today he runs an international business with shops in London, Tokyo and New York and a

turnover of 56 million pounds a year.

He's achieved this with a look that is classic but has carefully calculated flashes of color.

However, he says the secret of his success is not just that he knows a lot about

style, but that he cares passionately about business too.

He is Paul Smith.

How involved are you with the day-to-day running of the shops?

Are you there every day?

Well, not anymore, no, because I've set up a sort of structure now and I've got managers in place but in the early days I mean

I literally did absolutely everything you know from packing the boxes unpacking the boxes

serving doing the windows everything but you still

serve in the shop sometimes I love it that's the best bit the customers they're the

ones that pay my wages so you're your own chairman you're your own chief

designer you've got no shareholders?

There are four of us in the business.

There's two people that are involved John and Barry who have got shares in the

business. They're joint managing directors,

and been with me for a long time, and of course Pauline and myself.

...