Made properly: How Paul Smith is championing British craftsmanship
With his Made in the British Isles collection, Sir Paul Smith is putting the craftspeople, factories and skills behind British luxury firmly back in the spotlight.
- Words by: Harry Jarman
Sir Paul Smith is often described as the nicest man in fashion. Spend any time in his company and it is not difficult to understand why. But reputations like these aren't built on charm alone. And it is initiatives such as Made in the British Isles that perhaps tell you rather more about the man, and the brand that still bears his name, than any interview ever could.
At its simplest, Made in the British Isles is a collection of clothing and accessories manufactured entirely within the British Isles. But that rather undersells it. This isn't simply about sewing a Union Jack into a label and trading on Britain's sartorial reputation. Instead, Smith is celebrating the craftspeople, manufacturers and specialist skills that continue to thrive across the country.
For Smith, there is a pleasing circularity to the idea. When he opened his first shop in Nottingham in 1970, everything was made locally. More than half a century later, Paul Smith has grown into one of Britain's great fashion success stories, with more than 120 stores around the world. Yet that appreciation for the people who actually make clothes has never disappeared.
Every piece in the collection is made within the British Isles, working with specialist manufacturers whose expertise has often been refined over generations. There are hand-sewn Oxford shirts from Barnett Manufacturing in London; socks crafted by Corgi in South Wales; knitwear made in Nottinghamshire; and outerwear produced in East London using cloth woven hundreds of miles away in Dundee.
Importantly, Smith isn't treating British manufacturing as a nostalgic exercise. For Autumn/Winter 2026, the collection is expanding across menswear and womenswear, with Scottish specialists Johnstons of Elgin and Teviot Knitwear joining the project alongside Grenson, the Northamptonshire shoemaker with more than 150 years of history. Existing relationships with manufacturers such as Corgi continue, too.
And that continuity is important. Made in the British Isles isn't a one-season marketing exercise. It's an ongoing investment in independent British manufacturers and the specialist skills they have spent generations perfecting.
That feels particularly fitting for Paul Smith. His career has always been about taking the familiar and finding something unexpected within it: traditional tailoring with an unconventional lining; a serious suit enlivened with a flash of colour; Britishness without the stuffiness.
Made in the British Isles follows much the same philosophy. It respects heritage without becoming beholden to it. And, in an industry that can be remarkably good at hiding the people behind its products, Smith is doing something refreshingly simple: telling us who made our clothes.
Perhaps being the nicest man in fashion isn't such a bad business strategy after all.
