Patrick Grant

Biography

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,

for 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, and Alexander McQueen.

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.

Patrick is a regular on TV and Radio, as a commentator and a documentary maker, but he is

best known for his role on the hit BBC series The Great British Sewing Bee, which was

nominated for a BAFTA in 2022. Patrick won Celebrity Mastermind and The Weakest Link,

but didn’t do as well in Masterchef. He has written on diverse subjects for many titles

including The Financial Times, The Times and GQ. He has written three books, Original

Man, published in 2014, and released LESS (a Sunday Times bestseller) and The Savile

Row Suit in May 2024 . Patrick has a degree in Materials Science from Leeds and an MBA

from Oxford, 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.

He is the Chancellor of Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh (QMU). In 2018 he gave a

Ted Talk about the thinking behind Community Clothing. And he is an ambassador for The

King’s Foundation, a charity which supports education activities for people of all ages across

the UK.