What’s your name and profession?

Patrick Grant, Creative Director at Norton & Sons and E. Tautz.

What made you want to get into the fashion industry?　

There was no plan. By a strange quirk of chance I found out that the owners of the long established Savile Row bespoke tailors Norton & Sons were looking to step away from the business. I took over in 2005.

How has your professional/career path evolved?

I studied materials Science and Engineering at University, and spent the early part of my career in science and technology. I took over at Nortons & Sons in 2005 and slowly nursed it back to health. I re-started the old London sporting house of E. Tautz as a men’s ready-to-wear label in 2009. In 2012 we relaunched Hammond & Co in partnership with Debenhams, in 2015 I bought Cookson & Clegg, one of the UK's most prestigious clothing makers, and 2016 we launched a social enterprise called Community Clothing. We’ve been lucky to work with some incredible people, from Alexander McQueen to Prince Charles, and to win some fantastic awards along the way, but we’ve a very long way to go before I feel we’ve made a real success of everything we’re trying to do.

What inspires you year after year to continue to make new and different designs?

A continual fascination with clothes and style and a continual desire to move forward. London is the greatest cultural melting pot in the world, living here is a constant inspiration.

How do you innovate in one of the oldest industries in the world – garments and clothing?

Fashion is as much about culture and society as much as it is about clothing. We need to understand history but also be alive to the changes in the way we live and dress.

What are the core tenets of your brand?

Craftsmanship, integrity, curiosity.

Having created the category of single malt scotch whisky, Glenfiddich has had the confidence to occasionally do things differently. What rules did you have to master before you broke them?

Some men have no ideas about the rules of classic style. Some men understand the rules of classic style and choose to follow them. Then some men know the rules but prefer to paddle their own stylistic canoe. I think those men tend to be more interesting.

Glenfiddich 21 is indeed aged for 21 years, including spending time in rum casks custom made for the express purpose of aging the scotch. What do heritage and attention to detail mean to you?

Everything we do is underpinned by the same craftsmanship. No matter how modern the outcome, the process of creating it is always traditional.

Where do you see yourself in 21 years?

Crofting in the Outer Hebrides