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British fashion legend Paul Smith talks exclusively to MF about the working-class grit that ignited his passion for cycling, how a background in mass start bike events helped him build a global brand, and why there’s a shortage of creativity in modern design.

- Jon Lipsey

Paul Smith didn’t want to be a fashion designer when he was growing up. He wanted to be a road cyclist like his hero, the Italian rider Fausto Coppi. “My love affair with bicycles and bicycle racing began on my 12th birthday when my father bought me my first racing bike,” he tells MF backstage after his recent Paris Fashion Week Show. “He bought it from a man who was a member of the local cycling club, and I started going down there. I listened to the older members talking about the sport, I went out with them on training rides, and eventually, I started competing in time trials and track races.”

While models and event staff scurry back and forth around us, and an increasingly anxious press officer fails to marshal the pack of international media vying for the main man’s attention, Smith remains an island of calm in a sartorial sea of chaos. In fact, everything about him seems out of step with the image-driven industry he inhabits.

“What I loved about cycling was the fact that it was a sport that was about working-class men with grit, determination and strength, which really appealed to me,” he says, leaning into the conversation as his suit crumples around the creases of his long, elegant frame.

Born in Beeston, a small town in the East Midlands, in 1946, Smith left school at 15 without any qualifications and went to work in a clothing warehouse. A cycling accident at the age of 17 broke his femur and, at the same time, shattered his dreams of becoming a pro rider. His first shop, which opened in Nottingham in 1970, only traded a couple of days a week because he had to do other jobs to pay for the stock and running costs. He did things the hard way. He did things his way. And almost five decades later, he’s worth an estimated £300 million.