Pete Townshend is sitting in Paul Smith’s private office in Covent Garden, telling me why he asked Britain’s most successful fashion designer to create the costumes for a new ballet based on The Who’s extraordinary 1973 concept album, Quadrophenia.
“Right now, I could go into one of Paul’s stores and buy a suit and I’d look respectable in any Mod joint,” he says. “That’s how good Paul is. Having Paul’s clothes in this show will be fantastic. There’s a mythology attached to the Paul Smith brand, and he’s been able to steer it for such a long time. It’s a philosophical act as well as being about fashion. His clothes were born in the Sixties and yet they’ve reverberated around the world ever since.” Like Mod. “Like Mod.”
