logo
episode-header-image
Nov 2023
36m 1s

Patrick Grant, designer and broadcaster

Bbc Radio 4
About this episode

Patrick Grant is a designer, clothing entrepreneur and a judge on the BBC TV programme The Great British Sewing Bee.

Patrick was born in Edinburgh in 1972. His interest in clothes and in making things was evident from a very early age, along with a love of sport: his father was a rugby coach and trained Patrick and his friends. Some of his friends went on to represent Scotland and Patrick played for Scotland's under-19 team.

He studied Material Science and Engineering at Leeds University and worked in industry for a decade. Then, after spotting an advertisement in a newspaper, he bought an ailing Savile Row tailoring company. It was almost an impulse buy, at great financial risk. After a shaky start, he turned the business around, and within five years he was named menswear designer of the year at the British Fashion Awards. Patrick went on to buy a factory in Blackburn, Cookson and Clegg. He is passionate about British manufacturing, and set up Community Clothing with the aim of making good quality affordable day wear.

He has been a judge on The Great British Sewing Bee since the programme began in 2013. He divides his time between London, Blackburn and the Highlands.

DISC ONE: Les Fleurs - Minnie Riperton DISC TWO: My Heart’s in the Highlands - Else Torp and Christopher Bowers-Broadbent DISC THREE: Do You Wanna Funk - Sylvester DISC FOUR: Big Time Sensuality, the Fluke Magimix - Björk DISC FIVE: Harry Patch (In Memory of) - Radiohead DISC SIX: Kill Dem - Jamie xx DISC SEVEN: Get Better - alt-J DISC EIGHT: I Saw - Young Fathers

BOOK CHOICE: Green Woodwork: Working with Wood the Natural Way by Mike Abbott LUXURY ITEM: A complete set of woodworking tools CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Kill Dem - Jamie xx

Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Sarah Taylor

Up next
Jul 5
Professor Lucy Easthope, emergency planner
Professor Lucy Easthope is an adviser on disaster recovery and planning. She’s an expert in planning for and reacting to major incidents: natural disaster, terrorist attacks, pandemics and fires, and is the visiting Professor of Mass Fatalities and Pandemics at the University of ... Show More
51m 36s
Jun 29
Romesh Ranganathan, comedian and broadcaster
Romesh Ranganathan is a comedian and BAFTA-winning broadcaster who has been a fixture on British television screens for the past decade. In addition to his TV shows and stand-up tours he presents the Weakest Link on BBC One, Radio Two’s Saturday morning show and another weekly Ra ... Show More
50m 23s
Jun 22
Abdulrazak Gurnah, writer
Abdulrazak Gurnah is emeritus Professor of Post-Colonial Literatures at the University of Kent and the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Literature. Born in Zanzibar in 1948, the second of six children, Abdulrazak grew up in the dying days of the island’s status as a British protectorat ... Show More
51m 17s
Recommended Episodes
Feb 2024
9. Sir Grayson Perry
Kirsty Young talks to the artist Sir Grayson Perry about what he’s learned from his life so far. Once cross-dressing punk rebel, now ennobled member of the British establishment, Grayson Perry’s extraordinary life has given him plenty of material to inspire his art. He reflects o ... Show More
52m 34s
Mar 2024
Ray Winstone, K Patrick, Ferris & Sylvester
Ray Winstone, star of Sexy Beast and Nil By Mouth, talks about new Netflix series The Gentlemen brought to television screens by director Guy Ritchie.K Patrick’s in the studio to read from their first collection of poetry Three Births, which explores nature, contemporary queer ex ... Show More
42m 24s
Jun 2024
Patrick Grant, Frank Gardner, Razan Alsous, Marlon James
Fashion designer, entrepreneur and Great British Sewing Bee judge Patrick Grant has put his money where his seams are with his company Community Clothing and new book 'Less' urging us to stop buying so much rubbish and appreciate fewer, better things. We’re taking cheesy to anoth ... Show More
58m 34s
Oct 2016
McFly singer and author Tom Fletcher
Tom Fletcher of McFly, Silent Film pianist Neil Brand, Bookshop frequenter Erica Jones and extreme engineer Jimmy de Ville join Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir. Tom Fletcher is best known as singer and songwriter of McFly, he's also written for Busted and One Direction, clocking up ... Show More
1h 25m
Jul 2020
Job Centre: Not quite charity, but certainly cheering people up
Jacob Hawley discusses what life in lockdown means to keyworkers and creative freelancers.On this week’s episode, Jacob talks to Blue Peter’s newest presenter Mwaksy Mudenda about taking on a flagship show from her bedroom and Bethany Wells, a theatre designer who has set up a mi ... Show More
27m 8s
Dec 2021
22. Inspiring Bill Strickland
Back in the 1960s, Bill Strickland was a listless teenager but life as he knew it was about to change forever. One afternoon, while skipping class, something caught his eye - the door to one of the art rooms was ajar and he could hear the whirring of a potters wheel. Stopping a m ... Show More
28m 47s
Jul 2020
Job Centre: Shakespeare wrote King Lear in a pandemic and so should you...
Jacob Hawley discusses what life in lockdown means to keyworkers and creative freelancers.This week he hears from author and podcaster Caroline O’Donoghue about publishing into a void and defining ourselves by our jobs, as well as Republic of Ireland and Nottingham Forest coach A ... Show More
29m 31s
Jun 2021
Eric Carle (pictured), Helen Murray Free, Michael Parsons, Evelyn McNicol
Matthew Bannister on The children’s author and illustrator Eric Carle, best known for creating The Very Hungry Caterpillar which has sold fifty-five million copies. Helen Murray Free, the American chemist who developed revolutionary simple tests for diabetes and other serious con ... Show More
28m 5s
May 2022
10. A Format In Crisis & The Future of Reality TV: Love Island, Part 2
Sirin Kale and Pandora Sykes look at how one of TV’s most popular shows became mired in tragedy and controversy. Where did it all go wrong? And is this the end for reality TV? Featuring interviews with Megan Barton-Hanson, Dr Alex George, Jake Cornish, Rachel Finni and many more. ... Show More
52m 47s
Dec 2014
Brian Eno on Lord Young of Dartington
Brian Eno has worked with David Bowie, David Byrne and U2 but his choice of Great Life is not a rock star but the sociologist Lord Young of Dartington. Michael Young wrote the Labour Party's 1945 election manifesto, researched slum clearance in the East End of London, set up the ... Show More
24m 26s