Paul Smith at the Design Museum - Part Two

O.K.  There's no way that I could ever wear these clothes. 

 (Do click the links in the photo captions darlin's!)

 (didn't James May wear this shirt - or - was that my husband????)

That doesn't mean that they are any less fabulous.

 (to be worn especially w/ chopsticks in your hair)

It might mean, however that I should have been born a lankier kind of person.

(on the piste!)

Slenderer  and longer in every dimension.

 (a little very Celia Birtwell or Early Expectant-with-Wills Diana if she had just let her freak-flag fly - Sir Paul made cushions out of this pattern too - did he not???  With bobbles! L-O-V-E!)

And with a sort of regularly featured statue-ish elegance and gawk that is

(sing a Hollies song here)

typical of some English people.  Like Sir Paul Smith, Stella Tennant, and on his good days, Mr. Paradis.  Who, like Sir Paul, was ALSO born into the fashion and textile tradition that is Nottingham, England.  (Yes I do own a Nottingham lace tablecloth.)

I have to admit that I was surprised that these are the pieces that Paul Smith personally chose to represent him at the Design Museum.  And not his safer, though beautifully put-together, men's suits with that trademark "POP" of color that is his bread and butter.  On the other hand, these are a perfect amalgamation, a different expression (from the suits) of that utterly English passion for the exotic and the flamboyant, the whimsical, AND the muted, reserved, sort of straight-laced comportment that we think of them as having.  That is to say, how scary is it that I could also imagine them being worn - without the slightest twinkle of an eye - by my Mother-in-Law?  (Herself another Nottingham Beauty.)

Well.  Shall we just call them:  FRUMP-TASTIC!  If only I could get away with being so verryyyy.....Paul Smith.