Credo: Sir Paul Smith

I believe...

* Good manners are important. Young people need to realise that effort is free of charge. They should say please and thank you, and open doors.

* People should be interested and interesting. We are all moving so fast in today's electronic world; we should give more time to others and learn to listen.

* People have to take green issues seriously. In our meagre way we can do only so much, so do what you can. Be conscious of it, but don't be obsessed by it.

* Clothes should not wear the person. The person should wear the clothes.

* Designs on their own are not enough. To succeed in fashion, you need awareness of so much more. It's about trying to assess why anybody would want to buy what you design.

* A lot of the British media is flippant about design. In Japan or Italy, people talk about it in a serious way because they realise it generates jobs. Here, on the news during London Fashion Week, they will make a little joke about the clothes rather than comment on them.

* Britain has a goldmine of design talent. What we're not so good at doing is harnessing it. A lot of the designers around the world are British but working for foreign companies.

* My role-model has always been my wife. She was the one who taught me to understand about clothes design, and the importance of quality. When I started out a lot of designers were more innovative than me, but their product wasn't always well made.

* In a muse you look for something you're not. My wife is well read, she studied history of art and she paints. A lot of her strengths are my weaknesses.

* It's incredibly sad that some girls will not eat properly to become models. As a designer, you deal with what you are offered by the agencies. And the models you are offered are very skinny. I'd happily use slightly bigger models, but there are few of them around.