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 clothing, shoes and accessories.

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 has over 1,200 permanent 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 product

Our product supply chain remains stable and during the financial year ended June 2020 we sourced our fabrics and components from circa 240 suppliers with the majority continuing to be located in Italy and engaged circa 200 factories to manufacture our products, over half of which continue to be 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 and mills 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.

Update from Previous Year

Following on from our statement in the previous year we can confirm that:

• The expansion of our compliance requirements has continued and we are now including not only the factories and mills that we work with but also suppliers of our trims and components. This also helps us to continually reinforce our desire to ensure a high awareness if the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking.

• We issued updated code of conduct policies to our existing and new factories, mills and suppliers of our trims and components, including specific policy wording governing the recruitment and employment by them of migrant workers particularly capturing the Employer Pays Principle.

• We continue to monitor the processes we have put in place to date to evaluate their effectiveness and our register of Self-Assessment Audits is monitored on a regular basis.

• We rolled out the additional training we had identified for relevant staff.

• We are continuing to include causes 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 will include, if appropriate, requirements to comply with the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Going Forward

We will

• Continue to update our register of Self-Assessment Audits and monitor accordingly.

• Commence review and updating of our Self-Assessment Questionnaire.

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

During this financial year ending June 2020 we have not uncovered any incidents or indicators of modern slavery in our supply chain.

This statement covers Paul Smith Group Holdings Limited, Paul Smith (Holdings) Ltd and Paul Smith Limited and has been approved by each company’s board of directors on 14 June 2021.