It's time to look towards the new series of The Great British Sewing Bee with Patrick and Esme

Patrick Grant

What's the standard of the sewers this year?
Absolutely excellent. They're very good – as ever – and we have a few who emerge as phenomenal. Last year, there were five people that could easily have won. This year, it's maybe a little tighter than that. And I don't think we've ever had a group that’s just nailed transformations from the very start. In the past, it’s taken a couple of goes to get into the swing of it.

In the past, you’ve asked them to make surprising items like trainers, parkas and origami clothes. What about this year?
Making a rucksack was a really fun challenge. Obviously, it’s a sewn item you kind of wear, but it's nothing like anything we've asked them to do before. They mostly did a really good job. Past sewers struggled more with the high tops than this year’s lot did with the rucksack, even though there was more complication with the rucksack. Attaching the upper to the sole on the trainer seemed to baffle people. Well, not baffle them, but the way you sew trainers is certainly not something they would’ve ever tried before. Whereas the rucksack was mostly using the sewing machine in a quite normal way – albeit with very unfamiliar bits.

What were your favourite challenges this year?
I really enjoyed Art Week. The transformation challenge in Art Week was extraordinary – turning a painted canvas into a garment. That’s not easy. It feels easy because you have to make something out of a flat piece of canvas, but the challenge was to incorporate the painting on the canvas into the overall design of the clothing. Two people did spectacular garments – couture-level amazing. The sewing room was filled with giant canvases. It looked like an art gallery with a load of bewildered home sewers in it. I really enjoyed West Africa week, too. It was really fun having another judge in the room.

Tell us about that…
Last year, we did Japanese Week. Both Esme and I have travelled to Japan a lot and know a lot about Japanese clothing. And Esme and one of her Japanese colleagues came up with the pattern challenge. This year, we thought it would be fun to have somebody from the region of West Africa helping us judge – Banke Kuku, the Nigerian fashion designer. It’s challenging people's preconceptions about what West African clothes are all about and what they look like. That was why it was important to us to have somebody West African help us. We want to celebrate it in the right way.

A transformation challenge involving mop heads, dusters and rubber gloves sounds interesting…
Oh, yeah, that was really fun. You could tell what they were made out of – it’s hard to disguise 24 rubber gloves or however many it was one of them made a dress out of – but it was cool-looking. That challenge could’ve gone either way, but happily it passed off fantastically.

Last year’s contest was so close you ended up with four finalists. Did you have similar issues this year?
No, it was much clearer, but there were some very difficult decisions along the way. Last year, any of the four in the semi-final could’ve won, so they all deserved a chance to win. Marni, who went out earlier, could’ve easily won as well if she hadn't had a wobble. This year, we didn't have such a difficult decision choosing the final three. The final is spectacular. One of the garments is mind-blowingly brilliant. It will take your breath away.

One theme is the 1990s. What were you wearing then?
I was a real fashion kid. At the start of the 1990s, I was at university in Leeds and saving up all my pennies to buy bits of Vivienne Westwood, bits of Issey Miyake and the Japanese designers and a bit of Jean Paul Gaultier. My favourite jeans were a pair of Intarsia Jean Paul Gaultier jeans with faces all over them.

How much fun did you, Esme and Sara have during filming this year?
Oh, it was great as ever. Sara’s now in mothering duty, so baby Theo and Mouse the dog came up to visit us on a couple of occasions. There’s far too much eating in the green room. Far too much. I’m in Norton’s today and we've been trying on some sample trousers. My colleague was like, ‘Well, they are a 35-and-a-half-inch waist…’ and I’m like: ‘Not post-Sewing Bee. I'm not getting in those now.’ It was so nice this year not to have the Covid filming restrictions. We were able to socialise with the crew outside of filming days. For the last two series, Esme and I and Joe – and then Sara – were kept in total isolation during the seven-week filming period. This year, we got to go out for dinner and join in a karaoke night…

What kind of reaction do you get from viewers?
What’s consistent is people's growing awareness of the impact buying lots of new clothes has. You see some of the amazing things our sewers make out of old stuff and can't help but think we don't need to buy as much new stuff. You can make amazing things out of stuff that already exists. There are little nuggets of information we impart in a very quiet way about doing things in a better way around clothing and fashion. Those are the things I seem to see people mentioning a lot on social media.

Esme Young

What was the standard like in this new batch of home sewers? They had a very hard act to follow because last year’s gang were fabulous…
Yes and they were great this year, too. I always go on about this, but the thing I really like is how they learn from each other – just like my students do – and they get better and better. It's great to see how people develop over the series. The change in what they can do is quite dramatic from week to week. They surprise themselves. You know, there were some who’d sewn for hardly any length of time. They’d started during lockdown, got the bug and had talent. It's a way of being creative and expressing who you are.

Their personalities do come through in how they choose to make garments in the challenges…
Oh, absolutely. I always think what you wear is a way of expressing who you are… even if you want to cover up your funnier, lively side. Do you know what I mean? You’re wearing how you want people to think about you as you walk down the street.

What were the most testing challenges this year?
They had a lot of testing challenges, actually. The Parka was tricky last year and, this year, there was a trench coat. That was difficult. There's a lot of elements: you’ve got a belt, you've got a facing and it's double-breasted, so it's really important where you place the buttons. Then, you’ve got buttonholes and one of those storm flaps meant to protect you from the rain – a rain guard. It was difficult. So was the smoking jacket, actually. Lots of people have rarely done any tailoring. They’re not doing tailoring like Patrick's place in Savile Row does, that’s very traditional. And a challenge that surprised them was a backpack. Of course, it’s an item of sewing that you wear. They did find it tricky.

There are new themes including Art and Utilitarian clothing. Did you have a favourite?
Oh, I loved the art. We turned the sewing room into a gallery that week and I loved it. The pattern challenge was inspired by the Modernist movement. And then, they transformed canvases into garments for the transformation challenge. It was so 3D because the texture of the canvas was so stiff. It’s quite difficult to sew. In Utilitarian week they turned cleaning items – like mop-heads, dusters and rubber gloves – into an outfit, too. I thought that was brilliant. One of the sewers made a whole outfit out of rubber gloves. I loved that. It was quite extraordinary to look at, but it's interesting how they translated them into a dress you could wear. The challenges get more and more difficult, I reckon. There are so many different things you can ask them to do – no one will have made all the things before, will they?

And there was a transformation challenge inspired by your old designer label Swanky Modes…
Yes, using shower curtains. Years ago, at Swanky Modes, we used to buy vintage fabrics from shops because we didn't have much money. We bought vintage shower curtains, we bought 1950s car upholstery, things like that that people didn't buy. We were doing reuse and recycle back then, but I think that’s quite a common thing for young people to do… even in those days. We did a whole collection made of vintage shower curtains: skirts, tops, jackets, coats, trousers…. and they were very popular. I mean, obviously we didn’t sell thousands, but people in the know were wearing them. So, it was great to see what the home sewers would come up with for that challenge. When we first made them, we didn’t sew them, we soldered them together. We didn't want to sew them together because we were worried it would rip. But we found this technique where we’d use a thin strip of see-through fabric and sew it through there. That seemed to work. It strengthened it. I've still got some shower curtain dresses and things in my workshop.

What was your favourite Made to Measure challenge?
Turning crocheted blankets into another garment in Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Week was quite amusing. When I was a teenager, I went to this dance – it wasn't a disco, it was a quite formal dance – and I turned a crocheted blanket into a long skirt to wear to this dance. It was great to see what they could come up with because I had a big connection to that.

Did you have a lot of fun with Patrick and Sara?
Yes, as usual. We get on really well and I feel like the camera, sound and lighting people… we’re all part of a community. Everyone’s great. This year, the team were allowed out together after work as well. We went to this gay bar in Leeds and all these guys wanted to take photos with me. It was fabulous.

You’re known for your playlists in the green room. What was on it this year?
Well, as usual, soul music and reggae, but also quite a few late 1970s/early 1980s songs that were around when I was young-ish… in my early 30s. Patrick and I share the room and Sara has a separate room, but it's next door and all the people in the office could hear the music. One of them said to me she loved the music I was playing, but quite often someone would come in and say: ‘Could you turn it down?’ It was too loud, basically, but I like to bring a party with me when I film Sewing Bee.

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