Fender and Paul Smith release a striped Telecaster for two 80th birthdays

A new Telecaster covered in Paul Smith's striped pattern is coming out of Fender Japan, priced at £1,999 and due to ship in 2027. The limited edition marks two milestones at once: designer Sir Paul Smith turns 80, and the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation marks 80 years since its founding.

What the guitar is made of

The Signature Stripe pattern covers both the front and back of the alder body, paired with a tortoiseshell pickguard. The neck is a light Maple Modern shape in Fender's shallow C profile, topped with a dark rosewood fingerboard. Two specially modified pickups are in the bridge and neck positions.

A brass barrel bridge carries the strings, and a custom neckplate bears the Paul Smith logo. Each instrument is individually numbered and ships in a specially designed hard case. Orders are open now through UK.Fender.com, with delivery scheduled for next year.

The Telecaster body itself predates the brand's 80th anniversary by decades. Leo Fender designed the minimal, timeless form in 1949 and it went into production the following year. The shape has stayed essentially unchanged since, kept fresh for each generation through an endless run of variations.

Fender routes this collaboration through its Made in Japan series, which offers some of the most stylistically eclectic and finely crafted models in the range. Japan is also a market with a long history of Paul Smith fandom, which makes the pairing logical rather than forced.

The two brands are never far from their next collaboration. Paul Smith's house language is bold but tasteful polychromy, and the guitar reads immediately as a product of that school. Fender contributes the platform and the tooling; Paul Smith supplies the surface.

The clothing and the strap

The guitar is not the only thing on offer. Paul Smith has worked up a new 16-piece capsule collection of clothing and accessories alongside it, running from ready-to-wear pieces through to fine tailoring. The Telecaster buyer's must-have belongs to that collection.

That item is a guitar strap in the Signature Stripe, made in Japan with leather trims carrying both brands' names and a polyester weave matched to the guitar. It costs £150 through PaulSmith.com. Worn together, the pair carries one continuous stripe.

How the price compares with auction guitars

At £1,999 the Telecaster is far below the prices guitars reach at auction when provenance attaches. The most expensive guitar ever sold is David Gilmour's Black Strat, a Fender Stratocaster he played across Pink Floyd's records, and it fetched $14,550,000 at Christie's in March 2026.

Jerry Garcia's Tiger ranks second in our list of the most expensive guitars sold at auction, at $11,560,000, with Kurt Cobain's Smells Like Teen Spirit Fender Mustang third at $6,907,000. Both came from the same March 2026 sale of Jim Irsay's collection.

Provenance does that to figures. A 1959 Martin worth perhaps $30,000 on its own became a $6 million object once Cobain played it on MTV Unplugged. A new, individually numbered Telecaster offers a different kind of scarcity: limited production, not history.

Fender has not disclosed how many pieces the run contains or how long ordering will stay open. The numbering means each guitar is traceable, but the size of the edition is the one figure missing from the announcement.

The release belongs in our coverage of scene as the kind of object that bridges instruments and fashion. Paul Smith's aesthetic carries the look, Fender's Japanese workshop carries the build, and the price keeps it within reach of serious players.

Delivery next year means buyers placing orders now wait through 2027 for a numbered guitar and hard case. The capsule collection and strap are wearable sooner, and the strap pairs with any Telecaster a collector already owns.

What comes next is the wait itself: the guitar is due to ship in 2027, with orders open now and no end date for the order window given.