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Patrick Grant
Patrick Grant has spent two decades championing a better way with clothes: buying fewer, valuing them more, and understanding who makes them and where. In 2016 he founded Community Clothing, a pioneering, not-for-profit social enterprise created to support UK textile and clothing manufacturers and to revive good jobs in the communities they anchor. Patrick is one of the most outspoken advocates for shifting fashion from “sustainable” to truly circular and regenerative.
His career has taken him from rebuilding Savile Row tailor Norton & Sons to revitalising E. Tautz. He’s worked with global names including Cartier, Rolls-Royce and Alexander McQueen.
Well known as a judge on The Great British Sewing Bee, Patrick is also a writer, documentary maker and TED speaker. He holds degrees in Materials Science and Business and honorary awards from several UK universities
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Patrick Grant
Patrick Grant has spent two decades championing a better way with clothes: buying fewer, valuing them more, and understanding who makes them and where. In 2016 he founded Community Clothing, a pioneering, not-for-profit social enterprise created to support UK textile and clothing manufacturers and to revive good jobs in the communities they anchor. Patrick is one of the most outspoken advocates for shifting fashion from “sustainable” to truly circular and regenerative.
His career has taken him from rebuilding Savile Row tailor Norton & Sons to revitalising E. Tautz. He’s worked with global names including Cartier, Rolls-Royce and Alexander McQueen.
Well known as a judge on The Great British Sewing Bee, Patrick is also a writer, documentary maker and TED speaker. He holds degrees in Materials Science and Business and honorary awards from several UK universities
YOUR GARDEN STORIES WITH
Patrick Grant
WHO INSPIRED YOU TO GET INTO GARDENING?
Both of my parents were terrific gardeners. My dad had an amazing organic vegetable garden and loved showing off his produce. My mum loves her garden and is never out of it, growing a bit of fruit and veg but lots of flowers. There’s always a little posy from the garden on her kitchen table in Edinburgh
WHERE DO YOU GARDEN?
After years of balcony gardening, and a spell with an allotment, I finally have my first proper garden, just under two acres, set amongst gorgeous stone walled pasture land in the Yorkshire Dales
WHAT DOES GARDENING DO FOR YOU EITHER PHYSICALLY OR EMOTIONALLY?
There’s so much I like about gardening. I love the physical work and the satisfaction of a job well done, even if it’s something pretty tough, like digging rocks out of what is now my front lawn (I spent a good 150 hours doing that earlier this year). I love designing the garden — the challenge of structure, weather, wildlife, and plants. I’m at the start of building a garden that may well take the best part of a decade to complete (I’m a year and a half in now), and probably the rest of my life to reach fruition. There’s something very levelling about that kind of long-term thinking
IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE SOME DESERT ISLAND PLANTS WHAT WOULD THEY BE?
I’m going for hardy guys that don’t mind the Dales weather: David Austin’s Kew Gardens, which seems perfectly at home in this landscape; silver birch, which looks amazing, is loved by insects, and is tough as old boots; and finally, the snowdrop. I have huge swathes of them through the garden, and their arrival fills me with joy, knowing spring is on its way
WHAT IS THE GARDENING TOOL THAT YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT?
I have all my dads old wooden handled tools (spades, forks, axes, picks, his scythe) I couldn't imagine doing my garden without any of them. They keep my dad's memory very close
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