Paul Smith: Articulating Scents

"For my very first fragrance ten years ago, I went to one of those posh laboratories in Paris, and they asked me what my earliest memories of scent were. I said, ‘well, I can’t remember,’ but actually there were a few scents that stood out; my mum used to use proper furniture polish for example – that was a very distinctive smell in my house when I was a child. Also, because I was a racing cyclist from the age of 12 onwards, the smell of rain and freshly cut grass was…