Paul Smith: "Our shops are just interesting places to visit and there's always a sense of discovery in them." Paul Smith's new Melbourne store. Fashion icon Paul Smith talks to WISH editor David Meagher about being a fashion designer and shop keeper in the digital age. In part two of WISH Magazine's interview with Paul Smith, editor David Meagher asks what it takes to succeed as a fashion designer today. Classic but witty with pops of colour are hallmarks of Paul Smith's style. BEING kept waiting for an interview with a world-famous fashion designer is not a fact that would shock people. It kind of goes with the territory; fashion seems to work to a different form of time-keeping, and everyone knows that. Creativity, it's safe to assume, cannot run to a schedule. Over the years this writer has been kept waiting for a couple of hours here and there, been postponed a day, two days, a week even. We've been given the run around for the better part of a year and on one occasion flown half way around the world to do an arranged interview only to be asked to come back "in about a month's time." So to be told by a publicist on arrival for our scheduled interview with Paul Smith that "Sir Paul is running a couple of minutes late" barely even registers. What's a few minutes after all? And it really was less than five minutes before Smith bounced into the room set aside for this interview in his new Collins Street, Melbourne, flagship store and announced with complete sincerity "I'm so sorry to keep you waiting - I was just busy with a customer." Despite being the chairman, chief designer and major shareholder of a company that operates in 75 countries, employs about 2000 people and has a turnover reported to be ₤400 million ($609m), Smith is still a shopkeeper at heart. He has a hand in every product that bears his name, he photographs the advertising campaigns, he designs his stores and is an avid blogger, but his true genius lies in what really matters for a fashion designer: he knows how to sell things. And what's more he loves doing it. "We all know that there are too many shops in the world," he says waving his hand at his impressive two-level store in a heritage-listed building in the heart of Melbourne's luxury precinct. Just as there are too many magazines and too many restaurants and too many cars and everything, but it's our job as creative people to find a way to make your shop or your magazine or your restaurant more special than somebody else's. Some fashion companies would baulk at leasing a store with strict heritage requirements such as this one, but the interior of this 1908 store is perfectly suited to Smith's brand of quirkiness. The entrance to the store is decorated with a cartoonish mural (there are several small illustrations on the walls throughout the store); a fireplace is painted in a bright colour as a bit of light relief against traditional walnut furnishings. In the void over the staircase there's an entire wall of framed artworks, photographs, illustrations and assorted bits and pieces that alone could keep a weary shopper amused for hours. There's a lot of fun and humour in Smith's stores and no two of them are the same. "I think we've been successful as a company because we design clothes that people like and also because our shops are just interesting places to visit and there's always a sense of discovery in them," says Smith. I think we all like going to an antique fair or a book shop and suddenly discovering something and going 'wow, I have been looking for this for so long'. I think my shops are full of exciting little things to discover. Clothing and accessories are the main game at Paul Smith but in his stores customers can find items such as bicycles, books, cameras, cushions, a guitar, a toothbrush, Lego ... in a word, stuff. Stuff that Paul Smith the man just happens to like and hopes his customers will also like. Read the full story in WISH magazine, free with metro editions of The Australian tomorrow, Friday February 1.