After showing for nearly 40 years in Paris, having staged his first runway show in 1976, Paul Smith thought that this was “the ideal time” to come to Florence. Also because it looks as though Paris Fashion Week will be quite disrupted by the preparations for the Olympic Games. On Tuesday, Smith kicked off the special events programme at menswear show Pitti Uomo with his customary elegant, laid-back style, as one of this season’s guest designers.
 

Smith, who adores Italy and spends most summers at the house he owns in Lucca, close to Florence, decided to jettison a runway show format, opting instead for a more private type of event, presenting and explaining his creations himself. He received his guests at Villa Favard, the neo-classical palazzo home to the Polimoda fashion academy, which he transformed for the occasion into Bar Paul, a sort of gentlemen’s club, which he took care to personalise with napkins, glass-holders, cups, matchboxes and even sugar sachets featuring his name alongside the words ‘Pitti Uomo 2024’.

Some of the guests sat down at tables laid out on a huge lawn in the palazzo’s park, sipping their first drinks, while others ventured inside the building, admiring its gilded halls and frescoes. A first room showcased a dozen suits, including one in white cotton with a pocket containing several paint brushes, the first clues to the collection. The next room along, decked out like a painter’s studio, was where Sir Paul welcomed his guests, as though inside his own home. He unveiled 15 looks out of the 30 or so that make up his label’s Spring/Summer 2025 collection, steeped in an understated arty vibe.

Smith enjoyed playing the part of the smooth-talking, sophisticated Briton, with a sprinkling of his legendary humour of course, addressing the models by their first names as he called them out or politely ushered them backstage. The looks were at once casual and super-elegant, distinctive for their high-quality lightweight fabrics, especially linen and summer wool, with superbly cut three-dart trousers and impeccable blazers, alongside pinstriped jeans, gossamer shirts in printed silk, and equally light four-pocket overshirts.

Lee collaboration planned for 2025

Smith dwelt on the details, showing how he positioned the six buttons in a double-breasted navy jacket at exactly the right distance for an easier wear, or how he designed an oversize rectangular bag to allow a painter to easily fit their artworks in it. He also explained how to combine some of the items, swapping a casual top for a chic jacket over a pair of flowing trousers.

 
Trousers in Prince of Wales or micro checks were matched with tone-on-tone shirts and loosely knotted ties, all featuring the same slightly kitsch motif with moons, suns and period buildings, like the designs depicted on souvenir scarves for tourists. For a more rock ‘n’ roll vibe, Smith presented ensembles consisting of a dinner jacket with embroidered collar and lapels, matched with fitted trousers with floral piping in the same embroidered motif.

Some of the trousers have been designed with Lee, part of a collaboration that will be dropped in 2025. For Smith, it was also a way to establish a link between this new collection and his past. He recalled how, when he started in business in 1970 by opening a store in his native Nottingham, he used to sell painter trousers by Lee. He also said that he was pleased to have been one of the first designers invited to show at Pitti Uomo, in 1993. He took part in another edition of the show in 2017, presenting PS Paul Smith, his younger sportswear line.

Over the course of 54 years, Smith has always managed to remain independent and in charge of his label. A remarkable longevity in this day and age. Paul Smith is currently distributed via 41 directly owned stores worldwide, and hundreds of multi-brand retailers.