In March, the Paul Smith Foundation co-founded The Fashion Residency, a business development programme for early-career fashion designers, and his charitable foundation has now helped select the first six residents to take space at London’s Studio Smithfield in its inaugural 2024/25 year.

The Fashion Residency programme, which is also backed by the Mayor of London, British GQ and Projekt, will see the first six designers, Yaku, Paolina Russo, Laura Pitharas, Karoline Vitto, Paolo Carzana and Pauline Dujancourt, take up residency in the studio for 12 months.

The mentoring part of the programme, designed and delivered by the Paul Smith Foundation, includes over 60 hours of personal and business skills mentoring in the areas of legal, finance, production and marketing among others, “created to help each designer build a career which can be sustained for the long term”.
The six were identified “by their unique point of view, design aesthetic, clarity of ambition and intent for the programme”, we’re told.

Over 170 applications were received and the six designers in ‘Cohort One’ of three, were chosen following four shortlisting rounds including interviews with a panel including Sir Paul and Adam Baidawi, Head of Editorial Content at British GQ.

In addition to the individual studio space, designers will have free use of meeting rooms, communal break out spaces, a dye room, a shared kitchenette, off-site photography studio and a reading room with a selection of books donated from the Royal Academy of Arts, Phaidon and Tate, as well as archival GQs.

Sir Paul said: “The number of applications received was unbelievable, this really shows the need for a programme like this, and I wish we could help everyone who applied! I am excited to see how the six designers develop with the mentorship scheme we have put in place. I’ve being doing a version of this for a long time, helping people through advice, mentoring, introductions but it’s very rewarding to have this formalised and to work with such great partners.”