Great British Sewing Bee’s Patrick Grant: ‘The King is a lover of beautiful things’

Tailor Patrick Grant has said the King is a lover of “beautiful things”, and revealed that they’ve bonded over a shared dedication to traditional craftsmanship.

The Great British Sewing Bee judge has lent his fashion expertise to a new BBC documentary, Coronation Tailors: Fit For A King, looking into how military uniforms were made for May 6.

“I work a little bit for His Majesty, and I’ve met him on many occasions – he is a lover of beautiful things, he is a lover of clothes, he’s a lover of craftsmanship,” Grant, 50, told the PA news agency in the historic setting of the Royal Military Chapel, Wellington Barracks, London.

“He’s the patron of the Heritage Craft Association, which I’m also an ambassador for – all this stuff is really dear to his heart and it’s also really dear to my heart. I love beautiful, traditional craftsmanship in any way shape or form.”

For Grant, the King’s love of beautiful craftsmanship links back to his passion for sustainability and the environment.

“He’s somebody who keeps things forever,” Grant said

“I was talking [to him] about his dress shoes – the dress pumps that have that flat grosgrain bow on the front. I don’t know how long he’d had the dress pumps he was wearing, but I would have thought 30 years or something.

“He’s having a new pair made by Tricker’s in Northampton, and they have to take the old bow off and reuse it on the new shoes. Partly I think he loves the link. But also, these things are so good, they should be kept.

“Why buy new when something already exists?

“I think that is something deeply ingrained in him from his father and possibly from others – that things have value, and we do a disservice to the people who make things if we don’t attempt to keep them for as long as possible.”

This makes Charles feel like a “very modern monarch”, Grant said, particularly as “we know his views on nature, wildlife, farming, agriculture, organic farming, sustainability, making things last and preserving old crafts and doing things in a way that doesn’t harm the planet”.

This is in contrast to the late Queen Elizabeth II, who didn’t voice her opinions on these topics.

For the documentary, Grant toured three different businesses: uniform manufacturers Kashket & Partners, metalwork specialists Firmin & Sons – who are responsible for the buttons on uniforms – and textile company Hainsworth.

One of the major undertakings for the coronation is changing all the buttons on uniforms from EIIR to CIIIR – Charles’ new royal cypher.

“Firmins are absolutely unique – there is nobody else in the world that does what Firmins does,” Grant said, adding: “I think King Charles has asked that they just do the really visible [buttons], rather than go through and replace literally tens of thousands of buttons.”

He said “over time they will be replaced” as new uniforms are manufactured. In keeping with the King’s commitment to sustainability, “All the old buttons do get reused because Firmins have a smelting plant where they reprocess all the scrap, but they also reprocess any buttons and badges that come off”, Grant explained.

“He would be appalled to think that at any point in this process, people were wasting things,” he added.

As just one example of the level of detail required at a ceremonial occasion like the coronation, Grant mentioned “the precision with which Hainsworth get that red on every single piece of cloth they make”.

He said: “Because if you’re making red for the normal world, if [one] red is kind of red, and [another] is sort of the same red, it doesn’t really matter. But when you’ve got 150 people standing in a line, all wearing that red, that red needs to be absolutely the same colour across every one.

“Some of those uniforms are 25 years old and some of them are 25 days old – and they all need to look the same. There is a degree of know-how behind doing that, that most people do not have.”

When touring Kashket’s factory, there were elements that were “very similar”, to the tailoring Grant is used to, as someone who first started working on Savile Row in 2005 and founded fashion brand Community Clothing in 2016.

And yet there was also plenty that was unfamiliar to Grant, who splits his time between Lancashire and London.

“Their coats have to look different in a different set of circumstances. So if you are mounted personnel, your coat has to look perfect when you’re sitting in a riding position – which is not the way you would normally stand.

“And if you’re standing at attention, your arms are much further back than they would be normally – normally you stand there with your arm hanging naturally, and the pitch of everybody’s arm is normally slightly forward… But a soldier at attention, the arm is straight down, with the thumb down the braid in the middle of his trouser.

“So you’re making a uniform fit in the position it needs to look its best in, which is not the position you would normally stand in.”

Other differences to more conventional tailoring include embellishments – there’s a lot more required in ceremonial garments – the fit is closer, and the fabrics tend to be heavier (“The poor sods are standing out there in pretty warm stuff”).

The coronation will be steeped in history. “I don’t imagine there will be very much that feels particularly modern,” Grant said.

But with Charles’ overall commitment to sustainability and craftsmanship, the designer sees a more modern reign ahead of us.

He said: “I think he’s a fantastic role model for people, that we can live in a way which is much quieter, but is better in tune with the natural world.”

Coronation Tailors: Fit For A King is on BBC Two on May 3 at 9pm.