BEST OF BRITANNIA LONDON -
12 / 13 OCTOBER 2017
BEST OF BRITANNIA IS PROUD TO BE AT THE FOREFRONT OF
DISCOVERING THE FINEST EMERGING & HISTORIC BRITISH BRANDS.
BOB LONDON 2017 ADDRESS
The Boiler House
152 Brick Lane,
London
E1 6RU
Best of Britannia is an uplifting and inspirational retail
and events platform for the growing number of people looking to purchase high
quality products, made right here in Britain by people who take great pride in
making things beautifully.
BOB is at the vanguard of a UK-wide phenomenon, as the
manufacturing skills that were the foundation of Britain’s past prosperity
undergo an extraordinary renaissance. From the Scottish Highlands to the South
Downs, from Norwich to Penzance, we are witnessing the re-birth of the
well-made object – the high-quality artefact, produced here by people who have
honed their skills over generations. Craftsmen and women, artisans, designers
and manufacturers have been curated and united here at BOB – we want to sell to
the world the products from the men and women who have devoted themselves to
their creation.
With the Creative Industries bringing a staggering
collective £87 billion into the UK economy and employing 1 in every 11 people
it is time that we started shouting about it from the rooftops, showing how
proud we are of how brilliant we collectively are. It is time too, that both
British retailer and consumer recognises the sheer quality of what is produced
here and chooses to prioritise British-made goods over produce made elsewhere
for which the provenance is less assured and for which the environmental impact
of it reaching these shores is well-documented. The BOB team came together in
2012 and since then, we have devoted ourselves to building a collective of
brands and their makers via, first an event platform and now an accompanying
online retail platform.
We hope you come to BOB London to discover, order, purchase
and enjoy the products available and the stories behind them which you can then
relay on to your friends and families and thereby pass the baton on. Best of
Britannia – 100% Futureproof.
Visit Best of Britannia if:
You want to discover new British brands, see how they are
made and meet the people who make them
You want to find unique British-made product from over 150
brands including menswear, womenswear, childrenswear, footwear, accessories,
jewellery, cycling, motoring, home furnishings and much, much more
You want to taste some of the best food and drink available
in the UK from fine wines and cocktails to craft beers, from artisan chocolate
to cheeses to chilli oils
You want to have your hair cut or beard sculpted by the best
barbers in London
You want to be pampered in our wellbeing area
You want to shop till you drop
INTERVIEW WITH PATRICK GRANT
NOVEMBER 10, 2016 12.23
We had a chat with Fashion Designer, Judge on The Great
British Sewing Bee and BOB Ambassador Patrick Grant to get his thoughts on BOB.
How it resonates with his brand values, on why buying British is buying quality
and the Launch of Community Clothing.
How do you feel about
working with BOB? What got you involved in the first place and what inspires
you about Best of Britannia?
BOB is an organisation who we really resonate with. It’s
important to our economy that we keep these great clothing and textile makers
as busy and as buoyant as we can, because not only is it part of our heritage,
it should be part of our future.
A lot of people will look to you for not only your advice or
expertise but also to say ‘Let’s get behind this’. Is that something that you feel is really
important with working with Best of Britannia, but also with the various makers
that you will work with?
BOB plays a very crucial role in not only promoting the idea
of ‘Made in the UK’, but also actually making it possible by sharing knowledge,
sharing contacts.
It’s about confidence too – we’ve got extraordinary makers
in this country. I think they suffer from a lack of self-confidence and if
we’re using their services we need to have great confidence in them. I think
all the efforts of BOB and others are around giving people the confidence to
bring manufacturing back into the UK.
Obviously the recent significant shift in the value of the
pound makes it even more economically sensible to be looking to manufacture at
home where you can. Who knows what will happen to the value of sterling over
the next five years.
You’ve got a great story not only with Norton & Sons and
E. Tautz but then with Community Clothing. How’s it going and what’s your next
ambition for Community Clothing?
We officially launch our web-store and open our store in
Blackburn for Community Clothing September 7. As a brand you can shop us from
September 7, whereas before we ran a kick-starter campaign for almost a month
where you could pre-order some pieces. But then we had to go away and
manufacture those and deliver those. Now we will be available to buy just like
any other British-made brand.
But the idea with Community Clothing is to try and
fundamentally change the economics. Sometimes people have perceptions of ‘Made
in Britain’ as somehow a bit crafty and maybe a bit “home-made” and I think
that is a perception that is changing now as people see how many leading
designer brands are making in great factories in the UK and how much effort is
going into designing great products that’s made here.
The essential story is that it’s affordable to all: simple
clothes that are affordable to all. I think for quite a long time there has
been this feeling that British-made clothes have to be expensive and for good
reason some of them are. Community Clothing uses simple, staple fabrics –
everything is made in cotton or khaki cotton. This is not high-fashion, this is
simple, stylish everyday clothes. But we wanted to see if there was a way we
could have British-made clothes that were at high-street prices and priced at a
level that meant that anybody can afford them, not just wealthy people.
It’s the third Buy British Day on October 1st. Why is it so
important to “Buy British” and how often do you personally buy British?
For me buying British is synonymous with buying quality.
It’s important to buy a good quality product. We don’t do a lot of cheap
product here. We mostly do good quality, expensive product in the UK. And just
as a general principle I like to buy things that are well-made that will serve
their purpose not just for five minutes but for many, many years. We should buy
less rubbish and buy fewer but better things – just as a general principal.
But also it is important – if we want our towns and
communities across the UK to be vibrant in an increasingly post-industrial UK –
that we keep what manufacturing we have actually going. What we have to do is
rebuild what we have there because the service can only do a certain amount for
us as a country in terms of jobs, but it can only extend so far. For many
people jobs in manufacturing were what they would have done when they finished
school, so for generations and families – father and son, father and
grandfather, great grandfather would follow each other’s footsteps in the same
industry. Town’s identities were built on these principles.
No comments:
Post a Comment