It started very modestly with my wife and I, with a small amount of savings. It’s always just grown very organically and now we employ a thousand people just in Europe. The clothes sell and people like them; and not just because we give them away, or because we have celebrity front rows, or because we spend €80 million a year on advertising. We just do what we do, and hopefully it continues to do well.

The lovely thing about Paul Smith is it’s been real, honest, natural growth. In today’s world it’s all about borrowing lots of money but we’re very old school: we put any money we earned back in the business, so it grew very gently. The business is still run with a heart. We have to be financially motivated to survive, but it’s balanced out with good manners, customer service and people enjoying the experience of going into the shop.

We’ve always just let it flow. We’ve never really tried to invent anything. It’s a company which is still run from the heart. Almost every week you’ll find me in my Albemarle Street shop in Mayfair, and the conversation that I have with customers is always the same, they talk about the continuity and consistency of the company.

A shop can be as humble as you like. I started in a 12ft square room with no windows. You could even just sell to a few mates at first. Don’t worry about starting up here, especially in today’s false climate. Be humble, keep your feet on the ground, and you’ll do well.

The problem is that the world is moving so fast and there’s such a need to take money, especially if you’re working for a public company. Often you just turn to the lowest common denominator. You spend a lot of money on extreme promotion and it’s just a cop-out, it’s just a fast buck. It’s a bit disappointing. You just would hope that young designers would try to be a bit more creative in their own right.

I like being my own boss. I think it’s very important in design especially to be design-led, and not be led by the bottom line, the profits, and have the shareholders looking over your shoulder. It’s very dangerous.

You need to give things time and then you build a good foundation.

In the beginning, it was just about owning a shop focused on self-expression and quite a lot of the clothes were made by Pauline or myself. We have never been people who aspire to jets or chauffeur-driven cars. We’re just very at ease with life, and love and health. Just doing normal things.

The reason why Paul Smith the brand is successful is because it has real character. My company doesn’t make huge profits, but I’m the boss and I make the decisions. The privilege of that freedom is priceless.

In the early days, we were constrained by sheer necessity. And necessity is how the DNA of Paul Smith really began.