At Paul Smith we are absolutely committed to preventing slavery and human trafficking in our corporate activities, and to ensuring that our supply chains are free from slavery and human trafficking.

Founded in the 1970’s, Paul Smith is a global business designing & selling high quality clothing, shoe and accessory collections for men and women in six continents. We also license others to produce and sell eyewear, fragrance, children’s clothing and interior products and in Japan license the production and sale of men’s and women’s clothing.

Our distribution methods remain the same as in previous years; we sell our products through three main channels; our own shops and website, wholesale both in store and on line and licenced partners. From time to time we also expand our offer through a range of product collaboration projects.

Paul Smith Group Holdings Limited is the ultimate parent company of the global Paul Smith group, including Paul Smith Holdings Limited and our main UK trading company, Paul Smith Limited. Our registered office is at The Poplars, Lenton Lane, Nottingham, NG7 2PW, England.

The Paul Smith group now has over 1,300 employees worldwide. We have thorough recruitment practices in which we check all our employees’ eligibility to work and we are confident that there is no risk of slavery and human trafficking within our group.

Our Products
Our product supply chain remains stable and we continue to source our fabrics and components from circa 350 suppliers with the majority located in Italy and engage circa 300 factories to manufacture our products, over half of which located in Europe.

Indirect Suppliers
We also contract with suppliers for a broad spectrum of goods and services which are important to our business operations but which do not feed into our product production, such as information technology, shop fittings, till systems, logistics.

At Paul Smith we are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business and we have zero tolerance to any such practices. All factories we work with are required to adhere to ethical working practices, which include but are not limited to complying with key principles of ensuring that: employment is freely chosen and that freedom of association and other workers’ rights are respected; the required standards of working conditions are met and the conditions will be safe and hygienic; workers’ hours are not excessive and that regular employment is provided; there is no use of child labour; and that no discrimination or harsh or inhumane treatment will be practiced or allowed in their organisation.

In our last statement we intended to continue to look at ways to further expand our practices to ensure as far as possible that there is no slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains. As such we are continuing to expand our compliance requirements in a staged approach across our entire supply chain and we have now:

• Expanded our Supplier Code of Conduct and Self-Assessment Audits to cover not only the factories but also the mills we work with.

• Set up a register and process to monitor the completed Self-Assessments Audits.

• Included clauses to specifically address the Modern Slavery Act 2015 in any relevant contracts with 3rd parties that have been renewed during this financial year.

• Any new contracts with 3rd parties include, if appropriate, requirements to comply with the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

• Continue to expand our compliance requirements throughout our supply chain and to reinforce an ever-present high awareness and understanding of the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our business.

• Continue to monitor the processes we have put in place to date to evaluate their effectiveness.

• Investigate membership of various external organisations that may provide additional support in developing transparency in our supply chain and therefore minimising the risk of modern slavery and human trafficking.

• Investigate additional training programmes for staff.