LONDON — Model and entrepreneur David Gandy is passionate about cars.
Just last week he was one of the judges at Cartier’s annual Style et Luxe competition and now he’s designing the travel kit for the Jaguar TCS Racing 2024 season in collaboration with his brand, David Gandy Wellwear.
“I always said fashion pays for the passion — and the passion is cars really at the end of the day,” Gandy said jokingly in an interview.
His work with Jaguar began in 2010 and was there at the car manufacturer’s first Formula E race in 2016. He’s experienced firsthand what the team goes through during their racing seasons, from their downtime to the fast tracks around the world.
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Gandy explained to the Jaguar team that the outfits they were wearing were not comfortable or stylish.
He pointed out to Jaguar that Wellwear’s range of apparel was beyond just comfort. The pieces use mineral-infused fabric, which aids body recovery, and when the pieces are worn, body heat is absorbed by the inner layer of the fabric and reflected back to the wearer in the form of far infrared rays, otherwise known as FIR.
The heat generated by FIR has healing qualities such as relaxing muscles, strengthening the metabolism, increasing blood flow and sending nutrients, oxygen, white blood cells and antibodies around the body.
The designs are discreet and simple. “The team colors are black, gold and white, so it was easy to work with and add a bit of that trim to it,” Gandy said.
The items include a zip-up hoodie, tapered joggers and a cotton crew T-shirt. Each item has been personalized with a custom Jaguar TCS Racing logo that’s embroidered in black thread and the hoodie’s metal zip is engraved with the logo.
Gandy calls himself a frustrated engineer and working with Jaguar TCS Racing has relieved him of that frustration to create clothes with substance.
Looking ahead, he has more projects underway that he kept mum about, but he will be partnering with Hackett again in the fall for Wellwear’s second collaboration with the brand.
Gandy is attending this weekend’s London ePrix, where he will be diving deep into the cars on show.
“As long as I can remember [I’ve been into cars]. My granddad was interested in engineering, he could take a car or motorbike apart and put it back together, but none of my family are into cars whatsoever,” he said, adding that between school and university, he worked at the weekly motoring magazine Auto Express.
