Patrick Grant to co-chair Scottish textiles training programme

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Jun 29, 2018

Fashion designer and TV star Patrick Grant and leading Scottish textiles manufacturer John Sugden are taking over a textile programme for children and adults in Scotland.

Grant and Sugden have been named co-chairs of Future Textiles, a training programme based at Dumfries House, and take over from previous chairman and father of John, James Sudgen, who passed away late last year.

Through this shared role, they will combine their knowledge and expertise to ensure that the programme, offered by The Prince’s Foundation, continues to provide expert training in traditional skills such as sewing, weaving and knitting to school children from across Scotland and adults looking to gain employment in the industry.

The appointments follows news that LVMH had sponsored the refurbishment of an unused sawmill on the Dumfries House estate to build a fashion and textiles school earlier this year. The LVMH Textile Training Centre will host intensive courses in sewing, cutting, and finishing fabrics for adults looking to gain employment in the industry.

Patrick Grant said: “The manufacture of clothing and textiles has a sustainable future in the UK, but the future of manufacturing will look very different from the past. We will need employees with higher skill levels and greater flexibility than ever before, employees willing to continue to learn throughout their career and we need new solutions to bridge a skills gap created by decades of under investment in training.”

“British manufacturing, particularly textiles, is on the up again and the biggest issue that the industry faces is the shortage of skill due to a lack of success and, thus, investment over the last 30 years,” added John Sugden, the director of outfitter Campbell’s of Beauly.

“Step-by-step we can collectively start to turn this predicament around, and it starts from the grass roots upwards, and this means teaching traditional skills like those we are focusing on at the training centre here at Dumfries House."