Grant’s episode on Desert Island Discs will air on BBC
Radio 4 at 11.15am on Sunday.
PILLAR
OF THE
COMMUNITY
Men's
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https://www.johnlewis.com/content/fashion/men/patrick-grant-community-clothing
From
juggling huge brands to helping deprived communities, Patrick Grant has had an
incredible career. As John Lewis becomes the first to stock his Community
Clothing line, we talk to the groundbreaking designer about his life and work
Patrick
will be kickstarting the My John Lewis Festival of Sewing with an event on
Wednesday 21st of March, starting at 6pm. Please join us for an evening of
conversation and an open Q&A with Patrick.
There are
those who say that they want things to change, and then there’s Patrick Grant.
A man so invested in improving the British fashion and manufacturing industry
that he has moved his entire life from London to Blackburn in order to devote
more time and effort into effecting that change.
It’s hard
not to be aware of the man and his work. You may recognise Patrick from his
role as a judge on The Great British Sewing Bee. Perhaps you’re a fan of the
brands he heads, which include Savile Row tailor Norton & Sons, menswear
pioneer E. Tautz and the basics brand that we’re talking to him about today,
Community Clothing. You may well have worn a piece of clothing made at Cookson
& Clegg, a manufacturer that he saved from going under six years ago. Safe
to say his influence is hard to overstate.
We sat down
with Patrick over Zoom to discuss the fashion industry and much more, including
what it means to have Community Clothing – the five-year-old brand that he
founded in a bid to restore prosperity to the UK manufacturing industry – join
the John Lewis family for the first time.
On the
IMPORTANCE
OF HONESTY
Patrick’s
15 years in fashion have seen him cover off pretty much every role available –
from creative director and designer to manufacturer and factory owner – giving
him a unique insight into what’s really important in the industry.
‘John Lewis
has a strong sense of honesty and trust, two things which are really important
both for me and Community Clothing,’ Patrick explains. ‘In everything that we
do for the brand, we try to be completely transparent and honest, right down to
the way we shoot our product.’ Retouching and unrealistic beauty ideals are,
refreshingly, out of the window. ‘We want people to be able to relate to
Community Clothing and we want our clothing to represent our community.’
Patrick Grant
On
COMMUNITY
CLOTHING
Community
Clothing was born when Patrick spotted a gap in the market that desperately
needed to be filled. ‘You used to be able to go anywhere on the UK high street
and buy really high-quality, affordable clothing,’ he says. ‘Now, you can get
affordable clothing but it’s just not the quality that it used to be.
Long-lasting, high-quality, affordable clothing was missing from the British
clothing landscape.’
The
Blackburn-based brand launched five years ago. It is defiantly local – right
down to the homegrown photographer and the models, who are from a nearby school
and the wider community. Patrick is particularly fond of Bob, a retiree and now
model, who he met at the bowling club in Blackburn. Bob’s wife Barbara also
comes to the shoots to make the tea and hand out biscuits.
“Long-lasting, high-quality, affordable clothing was
missing from the British clothing landscape”
Patrick Grant
‘I
understand the price that British shoppers are prepared to pay for clothing, so
I started to think about how we could make the product in British factories,
using great quality cloth, and still keep it affordable.’ Patrick realised that
people wanted something that went against the grain of traditional seasonal
pieces and standard manufacturing practices.
‘There’s a
fixed model in the clothing industry and everyone does the same thing, to a
greater or lesser extent. It’s based around designing new stuff season after
season and always moving around to find a cheaper way of making those pieces.
But I understood that in order for a factory to work, it needed to be operating
on a high level of output 365 days a year.’
Patrick
Grant
On the
POWER OF
COMMUNITY
‘We set out
to create as much economic value in the town where we manufacture as we can,’
Patrick explains. ‘The reason that we shoot with local photographers, local
models, and use a local Blackburn studio is so that the money we pay everyone
actually goes into the pockets of those in the local community.’
And it’s
not just the shoots that Community Clothing does locally. The Cookson & Clegg
manufacturer that Patrick owns is also in Blackburn, so he’s created a
community of factory workers to make the clothes, using locally crafted
materials. ‘The manufacturing industry used to be the beating heart of a
community. The sense of purpose and pride, as well as the economic prosperity
and cohesion that came from the industry, has disappeared,’ explains Patrick.
‘The loss of these industries has resulted in a lot of things, but most
importantly the breakdown of community.’
Patrick Grant
On
BRITISH-MADE
CLOTHING
The rise of
fast fashion and a declining British textile industry gave Patrick the push to
start Community Clothing. But how does he keep prices down, without losing
quality or, indeed, using materials or labour from abroad? ‘We want to encourage
people to slow down their consumption,’ he argues. ‘We have two design
principles: simplify the purchasing process for the customer and make things
easier for the factory. Where other brands might have seven different fabrics
for seven different coats, or a slight variety in their material for different
pieces like a hoodie or joggers, we almost always use the same fabric within
each category.’
And rather
than importing fabrics, 90% of those used by Community Clothing are made in the
UK. ‘The only thing that we don’t get in this country is our denim, and that’s
because there’s only one very expensive producer of denim in the UK,’ says
Patrick. ‘Instead, our denim is sourced from two super-sustainable and ethical
firms – one in Turkey and one in Portugal.’
“Everything that we do is to sustain and create jobs
in the UK textile industry and to help restore economic prosperity in some of
the most deprived communities”
Patrick Grant
Patrick can
reel off the names of his local suppliers without having to consult a phone or
notebook. There’s the raincoat material from British Millerain in Rochdale, the
jersey for sweatshirts and T-shirts from Leicester, the rugby shirt cloth from
a specialist in the midlands.
Patrick
proudly declares that ‘the yarn for our T-shirts is spun in Manchester, the
jersey is knitted and dyed in Leicester, and then it’s cut and sewn in our
factory in Blackburn. We have a tiny, tiny footprint. The fundamental goal of
everything that we do as a brand is to sustain and create jobs in the UK
textile industry and to help restore economic prosperity in some of the most
deprived communities in the country.’
Patrick
Grant
On the
FUTURE OF
FASHION
‘We’ve got
modest ambitions, but each year we want to continue to grow and improve, and to
have a positive impact on the people that we work with and the dialogue that
surrounds the industry,’ he says. At last count, Patrick and his team had
created 140,000 hours of work since 2015, with that number doubling every year.
So far, they have 28 factories in 24 different towns, a number that they also
aim to keep growing. The aim is to create 5,000 full-time jobs.
So, what’s
next for Community Clothing and Patrick? ‘We want to make big social change,’
he answers. ‘We’ve already had a very positive impact for Blackburn, and we
hope to do the same for lots of other communities. It’s genuinely incredibly
rewarding to be working in a business where everyone who comes into contact
with it says great things.
‘I’m lucky
enough that, because I’m on TV on The Great British Sewing Bee, I’ve managed to
talk about sustainability, reuse and repair and get those issues to a much
broader audience,’ he says. ‘I’m fortunate to have a voice that can help move
the discussion of clothing in a positive way because it really can be a
positive thing. We’ve seen how it can create good jobs, prosperity and
happiness in communities all across the UK.’
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