Patrick Grant: Head Creative Director of Norton & Sons of Savile Row

Grazia Daily: How did you become involved in the Pudsey Bear 2012 Project for BBC’s Children in Need?

Patrick Grant: We were involved last year through Katie Hillier. It was on such a smaller scale though, the whole budget was! And last time it was mostly local London designers, until Vuitton came in. But it’s exploded this year with all of this amazing stuff, so we had to step up to the plate. It’s amazing the length these guys have gone to, which is so great for the charity. The work that’s gone into these bears, it’s something else.

Grazia Daily: You put so much creativity into your Pudsey, did you have any inspirations with the design?

Patrick Grant: We chose a classic evening bear, very Savile Row with the smoking jacket. We did the hat and the gold work – it’s all done by hand, so everything on our bear was made in our workshop. It was a team effort, and it was a lot of hours of work!

And he’s cute! I like him, he’s very cuddly. Henry, Katie and I took our bears to one of the project houses Children In Need support in Hackney, and the kids cuddled with the bears, which is so nice.

Grazia Daily: Pudsey is so iconic, what was your design concept in balancing the icon with your own vision?

Patrick Grant: Well the nice thing about this project is you can do anything you like. We wanted to give him a particular character, and feel like he inhabited the world of Savile row – an elegant, after-dinner bear, almost from another age of the country-house gentleman. We put in some classic elements. The frogging on the front we do with many of our jackets, but on Pudsey it’s in a contrasting colour, which is kind of a military reference. And the gold braiding, it’s part military and part ceremonial costume.

Grazia Daily: You thought so much about your design!

Patrick Grant: Yes, we definitely did. We got lucky with the tassel though, I won’t tell you where we found it, but it was in the workshop on something else and it was better than the one we had, so we just took it!

Grazia Daily: It’s great you have such passion for the cause! Did you have a favourite teddy growing up?

Patrick Grant: We were just talking about it! But my favourite teddy wasn’t a teddy, it was a duck. Henry [Holland] was laughing about it because it was named Ducky.