Thursday, 22 May 2025

Top winemaker ‘may have to leave its Spanish vineyards due to climate crisis’

 


Top winemaker ‘may have to leave its Spanish vineyards due to climate crisis’

 

Familia Torres has been making wine in Catalonia since 1870, but says it may have to move to higher altitudes in 30 years’ time

 

Sarah Butler

Sat 17 May 2025 07.00 CEST

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/17/top-winemaker-spanish-vineyards-climate-crisis-familia-torres

 

A leading European winemaker has warned it may have to abandon its ancestral lands in Catalonia in 30 years’ time because climate change could make traditional growing areas too dry and hot.

 

Familia Torres is already installing irrigation at its vineyards in Spain and California and is planting vines on land at higher altitudes as it tries to adapt to more extreme conditions.

 

“Irrigation is the future. We do not rely on the weather,” said its 83-year-old president, Miguel Torres. “I don’t know how long we can stay here making good wines, maybe 20 or 30 years, I don’t know. Climate change is changing all the circumstances.”

 

The family business has been making wine in Catalonia since 1870, but Torres said: “In 30 to 50 years’ time maybe we have to stop viniculture here.

 

“Tourists are very important for Catalonia and we are very close to Barcelona. This area could be for activity for tourists but viniculture, I don’t think is going to be here.”

 

The group, which invests 11% of its profits every year to combatting and adapting to the climate crisis, may instead have to move at least some of its vineyards “more to the west because it is cooler and we have to have water”.

 

Familia Torres has more than 1,000 hectares of vineyards in Catalonia, mainly in the Penedès region, as well as sites in other parts of Spain, Chile and California.

 

It is now expanding to higher altitudes, producing grapes in Tremp, in the Catalan Pre-Pyrenees, at 950 metres, and acquiring plots in Benabarre, in the Aragonese Pyrenees, at 1,100 metres, where it is still too cold to grow vines. It is also using a variety of techniques to reduce or reuse water in its growing and processing practices.

 

That came after the family recorded a 1C rise in the average temperature in the Penedès region over the past 40 years. The change is causing the harvest to take place 10 days earlier than it did a few decades ago, while the family employs a variety of techniques to slow the ripening of the grapes to protect the right qualities for winemaking.

 

Torres’s comments come after a difficult few years for European vineyards. He said production was down as much as 50% in some of the winemaker’s regions in 2023 – “the worst year I have ever seen” – and still down on historic averages last year amid extreme heat and drought.

 

This year so far has been better – amid winter and spring rains and wider use of irrigation – but Torres said he was concerned that damper conditions bring the threat of mildew.

 

“In the future if we want to have more continuity in the harvest we have to stop the warming,” he said. “The warming is killing the trade.”

 

The additional costs of irrigation are eating into profits in a highly competitive market with potential threats from US import tariffs on top of additional duties imposed on wine in the UK in recent years, as well as a new packaging tax which is particularly high for glass bottles and jars.

 

Torres said exports to the UK have fallen by as much as 10% and absorbing some of the cost increases has further knocked profits.

 

“We have no profit in exports to the UK, that is the reality. Hundreds of thousands of English people come to Spain on holiday and know the brand. We have to keep it alive in the UK.”

 

He said Torres was considering bottling some of its cheaper wines in the UK in order to reduce cost – as it is less costly to import in bulk in tankers.

 

“At least by next year we should be already importing that way in the UK,” Torres said. “British consumers are paying more for wine and there is not another possibility [to importing]. Production in the UK is very little.”

Monday, 19 May 2025

Savile Row To Community Clothing: Britain's Most Interesting Man - Patri...

Community Clothing by Patrick Grant

 


Grant’s episode on Desert Island Discs will air on BBC Radio 4 at 11.15am on Sunday.

 

PILLAR

OF THE

COMMUNITY

Men's Fashion & Outfit Ideas

India Price

-Menswear Editor

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.’

Norton & Sons / Patrick Grant: My life on Savile Row


SAVILE ROW CONCOURS31ST MAY 2023

Patrick Grant: My life on Savile Row

By Daniel Evans

https://savilerow-style.com/lifestyle/savile-row-concours/patrick-grant-my-life-on-savile-row/

 


As the sun beats down on Savile Row, bouncing off the prestige and classic cars on display outside Britain’s finest tailoring establishments, Patrick Grant, director of Norton & Sons, is very much in his element. He is delighted to see the Row packed with enthusiasts of both fine clothing and exotic cars as the second Savile Row Concours gets underway and he feels the future is looking good for the home of high-class tailoring. “I started at Norton’s in 2005 and, back then, the number of young people looking for apprenticeships on this street was pretty low,” he says. “We probably got one person a month coming in to ask about apprenticeships. I was then involved with a BBC documentary about Savile Row which sparked a lot of interest. After it went out, the phone was ringing off the hook. Making things is becoming cool again and I think, for many young people, a job with your hands where you are using your skill and your brain to produce something of exquisite quality is now seen as a cool job to have in a way for a long time it wasn’t.

 

“After we made that documentary, there was an immediate change in the number of people who were coming to apply for jobs here. We went from about one a month to two or three a week. Now, happily for Savile Row, the position with apprenticeships is very buoyant. There are far more people applying for apprenticeships than we have places to teach.”

 

Patrick is certainly one of the more high profile tailors on the Row. As well as his involvement with Norton & Sons, he fronted a TV documentary about military uniforms ahead of the Coronation, has been presenting The Great British Sewing Bee since 2013 and is currently doing some work with King Charles (about which more later).

 

First, Patrick tells how he became involved with Norton & Sons. “I was finishing off my post grad and I happened to be reading the Financial Times and there it was, at the back in the businesses for sale section,” he recalls. “I couldn’t believe it! There was this little advert – For Sale, tailors to emperors, kings and presidents. I thought this can’t be real but it was. I flogged everything I could find to sell, including my house and my car.

 

“This year, we are 202 years old which makes us one of the oldest tailors on the street. We have always done tailoring. It’s a wonderful business. We’ve never been one of the big, shouty ones. It’s always been the one that connoisseurs will track down. We’ve enjoyed being almost under the radar but not quite. We were big on making clothes for people who travelled and explored. Even today we have some customers who are polar explorers and people who do mad things like take pianos to tribes in the middle of the Amazon.

 

“Lord Carnarvon was a customer so Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened by a man wearing a lightweight suit – although it didn’t look that lightweight, to be honest. It looks like it’s about 25 ounces from the photographs. We’ve always made lightweight, unstructured stuff. Everyone thinks the Italians were the only people to do lightweight tailoring but Brits, for good reason and for bad, spent a lot of time in hot places and they needed clothes to wear too and Norton’s was one of the houses that specialised in lightweight, unstructured stuff that you could wear in countries where it was 40 degrees all the time. We still have those skills in-house today.”

 

Patrick knows the fashion industry does not have a good reputation when it comes to green credentials and is aware that sustainability has shot up the agenda. “We need to buy fewer things,” he says. “We need to consume less and we need to consume better things that are going to last longer and are not going to have any damaging effects on the environment on the way in and certainly aren’t going to have any damaging effects on the environment on the way out.

 

“We need to get out of the habit of buying lots of inexpensive things. The inexpensive stuff has got so cheap. You can go and buy a pair of shoes for a tenner – polyurethane top glued on to a plastic bottom. Horrible stuff that’s doing terrible things to the environment at every stage of its production then when the sole falls off, which it will do after you’ve worn it about three times, it goes in the bin and ends up in landfill and never biodegrades. Instead of that, you could get a pair of shoes that are made out of something that’s a by-product of our food industry, that’s totally natural and biodegradable and will last you for ages and every time it needs repairing, you can take it to somebody who can fix it for you. So, you’re putting more money into the economy.

 

“I still have a dinner suit of my dad’s which was made in the 1930s by a tailor in Edinburgh. It’s a bit agricultural but it is bombproof. I wore it all through university, both under grad and post grad, I’ve crawled through hedges backwards in it but you give it a brush and it looks as good as new. It’s coming up for its 90th birthday and it’s still in perfect nick. I’ve got a couple of other pieces from my dad which were made in the 1930s and jackets from my grandad made in the 1950s which are still great. It’s not just that the clothes are good but the more you wear these things, they pick up history and become part of the story of your life, your interactions with your friends. We can remember wearing things at a particular occasion and that gives them value too. Every time you repair something, it adds to its value.”

 

Patrick saw a great example of longevity while he was making the programme about uniforms for the BBC ahead of the Coronation. “As part of that documentary, we went to a firm in Birmingham called Firmin which makes buttons. It’s the most incredible place on earth. There is equipment in that factory which dates back to the 1650s. They help make the Household Cavalry helmets and they have an old blacksmith’s elm that was there when the business was formed in 1655 and they still use it. After seeing it on TV, a lot of people got in touch, all saying the same thing: ‘Isn’t all of this craft wonderful and shouldn’t we all do more to preserve it?’ Of course we should, but that means putting your money where your mouth is. Don’t buy ten cheap things, buy one good thing and care for it. Make it last and enjoy it because you will enjoy wearing that one good thing so much more than ten inexpensive things.”

 

More recently, Patrick has talked about working with King Charles. “I’ve met him on many occasions,” says Patrick. “He is a lover of beautiful things – a lover of clothes and a lover of craftsmanship. He is a great example of how to live with stuff for a very long time. He was having some new dress shoes made by Tricker’s (in Northampton) but he loved the ribbon on his old dress shoes so he asked Tricker’s to take the ribbon off the old shoes (which were probably around 50 years old) and put them on his new shoes. It was the connection with the past, with everywhere those old shoes would have been. There’s something intangible there that adds to the value of our clothes – the more we wear them, the more we keep them.”

 

In 2018, Patrick became co-chair of the Prince of Wales’ charity Future Textiles, an organisation that works towards creating jobs in the UK’s garment making industry. “It’s an amazing charity,” explains Patrick. “It teaches young people to sew. The main sewing school is in Dumfries House up in Ayrshire. So far, we’ve taught more than 6,000 kids how to sew. They come for a day or they come for a week and they learn how to sew with some brilliant people. We’ve also got a sewing school at Trinity Buoy Wharf in east London and now we have a school in the King’s home at Highgrove in Gloucestershire. The King believes we should all know how to fix our clothes and do these basic things so he set up a school to teach people to do it.”

 

As the crowds continue to teem up and down, Patrick’s words of optimism regarding the future health of the Row sound well founded. “Savile Row is unique because everyone understands that what we do here is incredibly special. People are prepared to pay for the skill of those who are making your suit,” he says. “Everyone who is a customer on Savile Row appreciates what that is worth – it is the skill of the human beings who crafted that suit, the skill of the weavers who have created that cloth, and the finishers and the spinners, and the famers who have raised the sheep or have grown the cotton. All of that stuff we need to value in a very different way. We’re lucky on Savile Row because people already do value it but we need to learn to have that same respect for craftsmanship and materials in everything we buy and ensure that Savile Row remains the absolute pinnacle of hand tailoring anywhere on the planet.”


Saturday, 17 May 2025

The End of Fast Fashion?

 

 

The End of Fast Fashion?

Even as President Trump steps back from his larger trade war with China, he has closed a loophole that enabled $2 shirts and $3 bikinis.

 

May 15, 2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/podcasts/the-daily/tariff-shein-temu-china-fast-fashion.html

 

Hosted by Katrin BennholdFeaturing Meaghan TobinProduced by Rikki NovetskyShannon M. Lin and Anna FoleyWith Clare ToeniskoetterEdited by Maria Byrne and Paige CowettOriginal music by Marion LozanoDiane WongRowan Niemisto and Pat McCuskerEngineered by Chris Wood

 

For years, American consumers have been able to spend next to nothing on the latest fashion trends, thanks in large part to Chinese clothing companies like Shein and Temu. These businesses have long used a loophole to send millions of packages a day into the U.S. from China tax-free.

 

Now, President Trump is closing that loophole, even as he de-escalates his larger trade war with China, and prices are going up.

 

Meaghan Tobin, who covers business and technology in Asia, discusses whether this might be the end for fast fashion.