Hardly any other designer in the world has been able to take men’s fashion into a slightly more bourgeois area without resorting to tongue-in-cheek kitsch – but Paul Smith has managed it time and time again. His flagship boutique in London’s Covent Garden is a place of pilgrimage for fans of the fashion brand, a brand which encouraged men to bring colour back into their wardrobe. He invented an iconic striped pattern which was used across everything from shirts to billfolds to toothbrushes and even with something so mundane as a black suit, he couldn’t resist stitching on a red button. Indeed, his cufflinks have before now had a heart motif. Only Smith can do that.

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