With an original soundtrack by Andrew Hale featuring Lou Hatie of New Young Pony Club, Paul Smith took himself and his audience on a trip through his impressive legacy for spring/summer 2014. Sir Paul’s early beginnings as a designer in the late seventies provided a fun-filled narrative for a breezy collection, which combined the hippie mentality of said era with the soul of the fabulous starlets who played poster girls to the extravagant club scene of the time. It was expressed in luxuriously slouchy tailoring – a lot of which was very shiny – and a string of bohemian dresses, some of which were covered in a mad daffodil print and echoed the beach holiday theme that’s hit the Spring/Summer 2014 collections like a tsunami to an unspoiled beach.
Optimism can be a somewhat forced thing when it’s placed on a catwalk, but if anyone has to do it let it be Sir Paul. At least it comes from the heart. A small injection, however, of the same electric spirit that’s epitomised Paul Smith’s menswear for the past two seasons wouldn’t hurt his womenswear.
