Last night I was lucky enough to attend a Q&A with Patrick Grant on a balmy Summer evening at St Swithins Church in Bath.

Tamara Cincik and Charlotte Somers opened the show with their announcement and exciting plans for the National Centre for Fashion & Sustainability before introducing Patrick and Lizzie Heffer.

Patrick didn’t hold back in talking about, what is famously called fast fashion, and the reasons why certain brands are labelled as such and highlighted the companies SHEIN and Temu as an example.

Something that really stood out for me, was the fact that Patrick is incredible with numbers. He referred to ‘scribbling on the back of a fag packet calculation’ on how we worked out costs / hours worked / affect to the UK economy - all that good stuff. He said it was because he’d taken an Engineering Degree…but to be honest degree or no degree, numbers and measurement can be his hidden super power, which is no wonder why tailoring comes naturally to him.

His successful small fashion business Community Clothing was of course brought up in conversation during the evening, and Patrick very clearly explained why his UK manufacturing business came about. He (like I do) find it extraordinarily frustrating that UK manufuacturing has gone to wrack and ruin. We, as a nation were brilliant at producing things, and it’s so sad to hear that there are some incredible skills and unique talents and crafts that are now lost…most commonly to places like China where it’s ‘cheaper’.

But the cost involved, as Patrick explained, is to the planet and to the British economy (which the UK Government choose to ignore). Unfortunately, I don’t have an Engineering Degree, so you’d have to ask Patrick about the actual figures he remarked on and how it’s so bad for us as a nation. But also the quality of what’s produced is low standard, so what we’re buying at half the price, breaks / gets damaged quicker, or (worse of all) can’t be mended / fixed. The only result is that its binned - thrown away to eventually end up in landfill, and then replaced by more STUFF.

I was lucky enough to be at this incredible evening with Sustainable Stylist and friend Becky Barnes. We’d been taking about our experience of meeting Clare Press and reading her book Wear Next, when Becky mentioned that she’d heard that Patrick Grant was coming to Bath to talk about his new book Less.

When I recieved the email from Fashion Roundtable saying that tickets were now availae, I got Becky on board asap. I’m so thrilled we booked when we did, as it was a sell out show, full of adoring Sewing Bee fans plus others, like me who are keen to reduce waste and open to new ideas to continue that journey. It just takes a change of habit and slightly different way of thinking about things.

I’ve made a start on the book and already his integrity shines out, but I’d love to know what you think of it too. Feel free to leave you comments below…

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You can buy LESS via Sustainable Fashion Weeks’ online shop HERE and my beautiful upcycled Denim Bag can be purchased from Sewn by Sadie HERE