PATRICK GRANT ON HIS ORIGINAL MEN

When I walk into menswear designer and author Patrick Grant’s new Mayfair shop, E Tautz, Roxy Music’s If There Is Something is playing. If there’s a more appropriate song for Grant, it’s hard to think of one. Since he bought the Savile Row tailors Norton & Sons in 2005, he has not only resurrected one of London’s most prestigious shops, but has also been a TV presenter on The Great British Sewing Bee, launched a diffusion range with Debenhams, Hammond & Co, and has written and edited a book, Original Man, a series of essays about various 20th century men, from Churchill to Noel Fielding. As if he wasn’t busy enough, his upmarket fashion collection, E Tautz, has just launched its first store, and we meet on the eve of the celebrity-packed launch party.

Today the stylish Patrick has the air of a 30s matinee idol crossed with a discerning Hackney hipster. If he is feeling any pressure, he’s not letting it show. We first met in 2006, when Norton’s was still his main project, but success and what he wryly calls ‘sort of’ celebrity has done nothing to make him any less charming. He’s proud of his latest offering Original Man, which ought to bridge the gap between coffee-table book and highly readable discourse on what constitutes famous masculinity, saying ‘I don’t know much about the world of publishing, but it was enormous fun to write and edit it, and it’s been really well-received so far; the publishers have printed more copies than they originally planned.’

Featuring a large number of former and current Chelsea and Kensington residents, including everyone from Quentin Crisp to David Hockney, the subjects are a diverse bunch, whose only common characteristic is that they are equally fascinating.

American musician Jimi Hendrix is one of the subjects of Patrick’s book

As Patrick says, ‘it looks great, but hopefully it isn’t a case of style over content – I think that it’s got both style and content. It reads really well, and I kept thinking ‘this guy’s f-ing awesome’ One of the main reasons for writing it was to find out some amazing and unusual stories about the people included in it – for instance, I loved juxtaposing some really well-known people, such as Churchill and Morrissey, with others who haven’t quite had their dues, such as Aleister Crowley and the diplomat and philanderer Porfirio Rubirosa.

It was hilarious to find out that Quentin Crisp never tidied up his flat in Beaufort Street and claimed that the dirt didn’t get any worse after four years, just as it’s amazing to hear that the playboy Gunter Sachs wooed Brigitte Bardot by dropping hundreds of red roses over her house.’ It’s whetted his appetite for future writing, too;he mentions both the possibility of an Original Woman, as well as ‘Original Original Man’, focusing on historical figures.

Not that he’s going to be abandoning the world of fashion any time soon. He’s managed to conquer the notoriously difficult men’s clothing market at both high street and Savile Row levels, and is looking forward to expanding his E Tautz collection, which he terms ‘high-end clothes for people who don’t have the time or inclination to go bespoke.’

The new shop bodes well for its style-conscious target market of men in their 30s and 40s, but as Patrick says, ‘it’s not until you open the doors of your own shop that you actually understand who your shoppers are, and I don’t think that you can build a business without direct contact with them. We wanted to carry more lines, and to have a team of guys around representing us in a physical way, which is a huge part of what we do; it’s not just me talking to the press.’

Patrick purchased Norton & Sons in 2005

He’s anxious that the process of shopping should be enjoyable, rather than a necessity, ‘people seem to really like coming to Norton’s and talking to us, and I want the same feeling here,’ he says.

The talented Mr Grant is aware that he’s becoming perilously close to a household name thanks to his regular appearances on The Great British Sewing Bee; as he puts it, ‘we get an average audience of 3.3 and a half million… that’s a lot for BBC2, and we’re one of the highest-rated programmes.’

And with TV success comes the potential pitfalls of being a famous face. When asked if he’s a celebrity, Grant smiles wryly and says, ‘sort of, I suppose. Of course there are benefits, such as meeting your idols and going to fun parties, and the drawbacks are hardly onerous. However, you get some odd moments, such as when I walked past Grosvenor Square and a very tall man with a beard looked at me, and just shouted ‘TELLY!’

If the increasing popularity of this original man is anything to go by, he might just have to get used to it.

Original Man: The Tautz Compendium of Less Ordinary Gentlemen by Patrick Grant published by Die Gestalten Verlag, hardback, £25