Patrick Grant, creative director of Savile Row’s Norton & Son and E. Tautz and star of BBC2’s Great British Sewing Bee, will be taking part in the upcoming Meet the Manufacturer conference that takes place from 3-4 June in London as the keynote speaker.

Patrick Grant will open the conference, addressing the issue of the return of the manufacturing of clothing and textiles to the UK.

“Producing locally makes good business sense,” he said. “We need buyers and manufacturers, with a passion for clothing, craftsmanship and British brands, to work better to grow the industry and Meet the Manufacturer is the ideal platform to do that.”

Inspiring line-up

Patrick won the British Fashion Council’s Menswear Designer of the Year award in December 2010 for his work on E. Tautz. In 2012 he won the BFC’s Fashion Forward award, was shortlisted for Designer of the Year at the Scottish Fashion Awards and International Designer of the Year at the WGSN Global Fashion Awards. He was also named Retailer of the Year at the 2008 Scottish Fashion Awards. 

He will be joined by an inspiring line-up of leading manufacturers, fashion brands and industry experts, including Jermyn Street shirt maker, Emma Willis MBE and David Suddens, chairman of Dr Martens. They will provide advice and real-life experiences of building British businesses, developing the skills for future generations and how to successfully manufacture in the UK.

Broadcaster and award-winning journalist, Lucy Siegle, will chair the proceedings, including a panel discussion with Lorna Fitzsimons of the Alliance Project; Simon Colbeck, head of innovation and quality at Marks and Spencer and Mick Cheema, of Basic Premier.  Some heated debates are expected as they discuss the challenges of creating British-made products for a mass market.

Knitwear exhibitors

According to organisers, most of the businesses that attended last year are already returning, with the show attracting first-time exhibitors from as far afield as Northern Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall and Pembrokeshire.

Among the new exhibitors for this year is William Clark from County Londonderry, one of the oldest textile companies in the world. Other manufacturers taking part for the first time in 2015 are John Spencer Textiles and Standfast & Barracks, a fabric printer based in Lancaster.

Other first-time exhibitors include British Millerain, Alexanders of Scotland, JC Rennie, The Natural Fibre Company, Tweedmill, National Weaving, True Mountain, Hall Manufacturing, Bamber Design Bureau, Handfield Design, Edward Taylor Textiles, East End Manufacturing and VGTec, as well as machinery suppliers to the UK knitwear industry, Shima Seiki.

New industrial revolution

Over 3,000 clothing brands, retailers, buyers and manufacturers are expected to come together to find out how to make UK manufacturing work for them and meet face-to-face with British factories and suppliers. 

Kate Hills, founder of Make it British, the campaign for the return of UK manufacturing, said: “We are poised at the start of a new industrial revolution in textile and clothing manufacturing, but this will only happen if retailers, buyers, brands and manufacturers get together to make it happen.

www.meetthemanufacturer.co.uk