Threads

In Threads, Sir Paul Smith shares the full story of his extraordinary life and career for the first time.

From leaving school at fifteen with undiagnosed dyslexia to a life-changing accident that would end one dream and begin another, Sir Paul's journey has been anything but conventional. A meeting on his twenty-first birthday with the woman who became the love of his life and his immersion in the exciting new world of the 1960s London art and fashion scene would set him on a path towards building the global fashion empire he has today. After fifty years of continuous trading, Paul still goes to his shop floor every Saturday to meet customers.

In a story filled with his signature wit, warmth, and eccentric flair, Paul takes us from the humble beginnings of his first tiny shop in a Nottingham alleyway--tucked behind a dark, damp corridor-- to opening his first London shop on Floral Street in the reviving Covent Garden, and then on to his conquest of other countries, including Japan. His memories of dressing rock stars, actors, and athletes give us a unique perspective on fashion, art, music, and culture in the last half century, with a cast of characters ranging from David Bowie and Daniel Day Lewis to Giorgio Armani and Sir Alex Ferguson.

Threads is the story of a truly unique British icon and of how a young boy from a modest upbringing in Nottingham, guided by his father's lasting message of hard work and repairing everything by hand, became a symbol of innovation and creativity. And of how, in a world of increasingly globalised homogeneity, he has fought to hold on to the precious independence at the heart of his vision.