Earlier this year Patrick Grant, The Great British Sewing Bee presenter and clothes designer, criticised the poor quality of Marks & Spencer’s jumpers and socks – and now the luxury British heritage brand Burberry is in his line of fire.
Speaking at an event organised by the Design Council last week, Grant had a simple message for the audience: “Most people who sell you clothes do not give a stuff about the quality.”
Grant was speaking at Design for Planet, a set of talks, workshops and discussions to highlight the importance of design in addressing the climate crisis. His keynote speech was about growing regenerative design businesses, but the passionate critic of poor design and fast fashion made time to lament the current state of fashion label Burberry – and express his contempt for Tesco’s kitchenware.
“Fifty years ago most people trying to sell you clothes would describe their purpose and quality in their advertising,” he said. “You look back at the adverts for Burberry. They made absolutely brilliant coats because they designed and developed them year after year after year. Teams of people would spend their lives trying to make the best coat they could – and they were worn for decades.”
Burberry’s first adverts from the 1910s and 1920s extolled its waterproof qualities and, after the company outfitted explorers Dr Fridtjof Nansen and Sir Ernest Shackleton, it was asked to design an overcoat for officers during the first world war – the trench coat. The current ad campaign for 2025 stars actor Barry Keoghan and musician Little Simz.
Grant – who is the founder of Community Clothing, a company with roots as a social enterprise working with British factories – said he didn’t want to “pick on” the label in particular. But his reference to Burberry came as news broke of a possible takeover bid by Italian outerwear label Moncler. The rumour has been a boost to the brand after a drop in share price of 40% over 12 months saw Burberry fall out of the FTSE 100 index in September. Burberry has not yet commented.
“Almost all the [fashion] businesses only exist if we continue to buy more stuff,” he said. “We don’t need fashion – if they all disappeared tomorrow we’d be just fine and we’d save 10% of the world’s carbon emissions.”
Grant also expressed incredulity at the poor quality of modern homeware. He talked about renting a corporate flat while filming the BBC’s amateur sewing show in Leeds, which was furnished with “absolute rubbish”. This included a Tesco baking tray in the kitchen that was so poorly made that it warped the first time he used it, flinging his chips around the oven: “We’ve put men on the moon, but now things have got so bad we can’t make a flipping oven tray.”
As well as commenting on the business practice of modern industry, Grant poked fun at the well-meaning middle classes. While he emphasised the importance of teaching crafts in schools, so that people understood quality and workmanship as well as the joy of making, he also found the current trend for hobbyist pot-making and basket-weaving amusing.
“Middle-class people with money now pay to do things at the weekend that used to be people’s jobs. Why don’t they just do these as jobs instead, and by doing that create a better society? We need to value this sort of work,” he said.
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Sophie Benson, the author of Sustainable Wardrobe, hosted a discussion on Manchester’s industrial past and sustainable future in fashion at this year’s Design for Planet, which was hosted by Manchester Met University. She says Grant is appealing because he’s so relatable.
“The refreshing thing is that what he says is not steeped in jargon, unlike so much fashion sustainability talk. It feels like having a chat with a particularly impassioned friend down the pub. The way he puts it, you can’t argue against the absurdity of the consumer system we find ourselves living in.
“Nothing is said with menace – he’s not calling out brands or naming names to be controversial – he simply wants better for everyone, and that’s a magnetic concept.”
Design for Planet is an annual free series of workshops, talks and discussions to look at environmental issues affecting architects, designers and makers. This year’s event was opened by Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, with an update on the city’s green initiative including a commitment to be a net-zero city by 2038 and to open eight new rail lines.