Getting creative with Paul Smith

Britain’s foremost fashion designer comes to Villa Favard for Pitti Uomo

Getting creative with Paul Smith

Britain’s foremost fashion designer comes to Villa Favard for Pitti Uomo

During this year’s edition of Pitti Uomo, Polimoda’s Villa Favard location presents Paul Smith’s SS 25 collection and a guest lecture by the fashion designer for the school’s students on the theme “Creativity & Inspiration”. One of the most influential figures on the international fashion scene, proponent of British style and elegance since the 1970s, the menswear legend fills the school’s Aula Magna with his infectious energy and passion.

Sir Paul Smith, born in Nottingham, England in 1946, is the designer, master shopkeeper and majority shareholder of the homonymous brand. He insists on dropping the Sir and being called “Paul” and maintains that “you can find inspiration in everything”, making it the guiding principle of his company.

His SS 2025 collection is also presented to the press and media in Villa Favard as a Pitti Uomo event on the same day, but his original and inventive approach to innovation doesn’t only come to the fore in his designs; it permeates his discourse to the attendees. He is exuberant throughout his lecture to the next cohort of fashion designers and fashion business experts, highlighting the necessity of building a creative environment, finding inspiration everywhere, and the importance of design, communication, individuality, personality and quality.

An Italophile, holidaying every summer at his house in Lucca, he seems perfectly at home in Florence’s fashion school. He is always ready to pass on his knowledge to the next generation of fashion professionals, as demonstrated by the existence of his foundation, established on his brand’s principles of positivity, curiosity and creativity. Smith is buoyant as he shares his learnings with the ambitious students of Polimoda: on this bright and breezy June day, positivity can be considered a synonym for Paul Smith.