Make room to break the rules

World-renowned fashion designer Sir Paul Smith visited the University to deliver an inspirational public lecture to a packed audience of students, staff and members of the public and business community. 

Nottingham native Sir Paul’s career is characterised by creativity combined with astute business acumen and he was keen to share the secret of his success to inspire the next generation of enterprising Nottingham students.

Leaving school at 16 with no qualifications or career plan – beyond dreaming of becoming a racing cyclist – to now running a global fashion empire with stores in over 35 countries, Sir Paul is living proof that ingenuity and dedication are key ingredients in business. As he succinctly contends: “You can’t do it without doing it but do things that are right and not things that are easy. Effort is free of charge.”

Sir Paul prefers to be seen as ‘creative’ or a ‘Designer’, actively avoiding the ‘entrepreneur’ or ‘businessman’ label others readily place on him. He passionately believes in innovation and creativity and finds inspiration in anything and everything including art, music, architecture, travel, and humour.

At the start of his career Sir Paul attended a lecture by celebrated philosopher Edward de Bono, and was inspired to think more laterally, an ethos which continues to shape his unquenchable creative spirit to this day.

“You can find inspiration in everything, and if you can’t then you’re not looking properly”, argues Sir Paul, a belief reinforced by some of his most iconic clothing i.e. a blue suit based on a Chinese military uniform, stripy knitwear inspired by coastal beach huts and photographic t-shirts derived from Italian bus advertising.

Individualism is also an important influence on his work and way of thinking. This is clearly evident in his legendary use of colour, for which he credits the inspiration of artists such as Matisse and Kandinsky, and in his shops, which are all different and uniquely individual. As he maintains ‘You need to make room to break the rules’.

The Paul Smith ‘distinctiveness’ maxim is as uplifting, in an era characterised by corporate homogeneity and indistinguishable retail clones, as it is commercially successful. As Sir Paul himself reasoned ‘There is already too much stuff in the world. Nobody actually needs another restaurant or another shop. The trick is to do something different, to look and see things in different ways’.

The themes of enterprise, innovation and creativity chime well with Nottingham University Business School’s own mission to enhance business and management knowledge and practice in an innovative, responsible, and sustainable way.

Ahead of the lecture, Sir Paul also visited the Ingenuity Lab to meet young entrepreneurs and learn more about Ingenuity19, the University of Nottingham’s annual innovation event designed to discover and develop enterprising ideas to transform our future. The event provides an opportunity for disruptors, entrepreneurs and community innovators to come together, and explore key challenges facing society as well as compete for substantial prize funding. 

Ingenuity19 will focus on two major issues – Future Communities and Future Tech. And for the first time ever, the event is open to members of the public and businesses as well as students.

Steven Chapman, Head of Ingenuity Lab said: “Sir Paul symbolises ambition, quality and success; Ingenuity19 aims to harness that spirit, and by utilising the resources of the University of Nottingham, create new partnerships, generate ground breaking ideas, and establish a structure where future leaders can thrive.”