Paul Smith: the British born brand

Paul Smith is amongst the well-known brands from the UK, meaning that the brand is quite old. When looking at the brand you start to see the British pop culture influences that made the brand into what it is today.

Amongst the British youth, the brand isn't the most thought of our heard on social media. I think the reasoning behind this relies on how the brand doesn't connect to the current teens but instead keeps to its own brand (which I mean is working for them as they aren't like other British brands on the high street so well done there).

Looking at the way the brand likes to keep its customers interested isn't that far from other expensive British brands as they connect to their target markets (older generations) and that's about it. They do this due to customers of a certain age like familiarity so once they've been shopping at a brand for a few years they are more then likely to not stop shopping there, even if the brand was to have bad publicity. Something that won't be covered over main channel news, but will be all over social media platforms like Twitter. That's why brands like Paul Smith keep to a familiar pattern and shaping to keep the main audience happy, but can change smaller parts of their collections to in-keep with trends of the time, but most of the time this will be one or two pieces rather than the majority of the collection.

Looking into the history of the brand, Paul Smith was created in Nottingham in 1970. Being from Nottingham himself, Smith always loved the British scenes of the '70s and '80s, something that is reflected in the collections he produces. The brand also sees a lot of different textures and shapes in its patterns which seems to be influenced by Bauhaus, an artist that is loved by Paul Smith. Looking into Bauhaus' work you can clearly see the connection between the two, even down to the colour palettes used.

It's interesting to see how the brand reflects Bauhaus' work, mainly in the patterns of shirts and blazers that they create. I think the reason why Paul Smith takes so much inspiration from Bauhaus is that it fits with the branding. Paul Smith's branding is very artistic and creative, whilst still in-keeping with the chilled "strokes" that the patterns have. You could even say that it's like an exuberant structure (thought this was funny to add as it's my trend story for my project ;) )

Being in that the brand wants to promote a joyful yet simplistic aesthetic, this trend story is perfect for them to explain how the brand chooses its pattern inspiration and creates them to mimic or alternate. The only question that I seem to keep asking myself is does the brand take too much inspiration from artists such as Bauhaus?

The answer is no. Well actually they could, I think it depends on how you look at the words "too much inspiration". I believe that there is a fine line between too much inspiration and not enough and Paul Smith is just on that border. The brand seems to associate itself with more outlandish themes when in reality, if you look into art that follows the same sort of trends that Paul Smith do you'll see there's much more relaxed art pieces the brand could be told off for copying.

For example, there are Art Nouveau style paintings that seem similar to the brand's patterns but there isn't much discussion about that.

I think I'll leave you to decide whether they have copied or not.