Patrick Grant
Presenting
Books
Presenting
Patrick Grant has a lot to say about clothes; how many we buy, how we value them, what they’re made from, and importantly who made them and where. His campaigning clothes brand Community Clothing supports local clothing and textile manufacturers across the UK and Patrick is an outspoken advocate for radical change in the fashion and clothing industry moving beyond sustainable to circular and regenerative.
Patrick’s career in fashion has spanned almost two decades. In that time he has rebuilt the Savile Row tailor Norton & Sons, relaunched E. Tautz for which he won Menswear Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards, and built the most successful designer collaboration in Debenham’s history with Hammond & Co. He has worked with some of the world’s best known brands including Cartier, Rolls Royce, Lotus, BMW, Mercedes, The Macallan, Chivas Regal, Barbour, Christian Louboutin, John Lobb and Alexander McQueen. Combining a love of craftsmanship, history and storytelling Patrick knows what it takes to build successful passion brands.
Then in 2015 Patrick bought the ailing Blackburn clothing manufacturer Cookson & Clegg, saving the factory from closure. This got him thinking about the fate of the many other great UK textile and garment makers, many of which he knew well, and how to secure their future and the future prosperity of the communities that those businesses support. The result of this thinking was Community Clothing which was launched in 2016 and has since earned him widespread praise from all corners, including across the political spectrum.
Patrick is best known for his role on the hit BBC series The Great British Sewing Bee which was nominated for a National television Award in 2017 and a BAFTA in 2022. He is a regular commentator on TV and Radio on subjects including fashion and UK manufacturing. He has been a contributor to several documentaries including Savile Row and Harris Tweed for BBC Four, Making Fashion Sustainable for Radio 4 and the recent Coronation Tailors; Fit for a King for BBC Two which received widespread acclaim. Patrick won Celebrity Mastermind and The Weakest Link but didn’t do quite as well on Masterchef.
He has written on diverse subjects for many titles including The Financial Times, The Times and GQ. His first book, Original Man, was published in 2014, and he is currently writing two more.
Patrick has a degree in Materials Science from Leeds and an MBA from Oxford. He has an honorary Doctorate from Heriot Watt, an honorary Fellowship from UCLan, is an honorary Professor at Glasgow Caledonian, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 2018 he gave a Ted Talk about the thinking behind Community Clothing. And he is an ambassador for The Prince’s Foundation, a charity which supports education activities for people of all ages across the UK.
Books
We used to care a lot about our clothes. We didn’t have many but those we had were important to us. We’d cherish them, repair them and pass them on. And making them provided fulfilling work for millions of skilled people locally.
Today the average person has nearly five times as many clothes as they did just 50 years ago. Last year, 100 billion garments were produced worldwide, most made from oil, 30% of which were not even sold, and the equivalent of one bin lorry full of clothing is dumped in landfill or burned every single second. Our wardrobes are full to bursting with clothes we never wear so why do we keep buying more?
In this passionate and revealing book about loving clothes but despairing of a broken global system Patrick Grant considers the crisis of consumption and quality in fashion, and how we might make ourselves happier by rediscovering the joy of living with fewer, better-quality things.
Weaving in his personal journey through fashion, clothing and the other everyday objects in his life, this is a book that celebrates craftsmanship, making things with care, buying things with thought and valuing everything we own. It explains how rethinking our relationship with clothing could kickstart a thriving new local economy bringing prosperity and hope back to places in our country that have lost out to globalisation, offshore manufacturing and to the madness of price and quantity being the only things that matter.
Praise for LESS
‘Utterly brilliant. We all need to read this book.’ Claudia Winkleman
'Patrick’s book is fascinating and sobering and makes a compelling argument for going back to basics.’ Joe Lycett
'Presents a new way of thinking about the things we buy.' Keith Brymer-Jones
