David Gandy: ‘I’ve tried to get Billericay taken off my passport’

David Gandy is talking about Marks & Spencer, his former employer. “My line was the most expensive they did. I’ve still got the jackets, but then they went in another direction...” He trails off, unwilling to slam the British giant he collaborated with for six years on items including suits, pyjamas and the fastest-selling swimming trunks in the store’s history.

“Another direction?” I ask, because I’m less diplomatic than the softly spoken but very beefy 6ft 2in supermodel sitting in front of me.

“Competing with the likes of Primark,” Gandy elaborates, as if he disapproves of Marks & Spencer’s attempts to take on the fast-fashion end of the high street. “Whereas if you look at their food, that’s premium and everybody loves it.”

On the other hand, Gandy does credit Marks & Spencer with teaching him the intricacies of how a piece of clothing is made, which is fortunate because last autumn, having parted ways with the high-street chain, the world’s most famous male model (go on, name another one) launched his own clothing business, David Gandy Wellwear. “There’s no way I could have launched my own brand before. I didn’t know anything about margins or lead times.”

We’re in a Belgravia coffee shop and Gandy’s just ordered his second Americano. When he arrived, he made a joke about being tired, only the 42-year-old model doesn’t look it – which is, of course, a tiny bit unfair. I spent over an hour trying to find my best jeans and drying my hair before slapping on foundation, concealer, bronzer and highlighter because I didn’t want to meet David Gandy looking like an old teabag.

Meanwhile, there he sits wearing a black T-shirt paired with Frame corduroys and Chelsea boots, accessorised by his rescue dog, Dora, and he looks exactly like the David Gandy who’s starred on more than 70 magazine covers: handsome, wolfish face; wide smile; no dark circles under those blue eyes. (Although I don’t know why everyone goes on about his eyes without mentioning his eyelashes. They are phenomenal. Does he get his eyelashes dyed? He does not. When Gandy was a baby, apparently people in the street used to ask his mum if he was a girl because they were so fulsome.)

He has every reason to feel tired, though. The day before we meet, he returned from Capri and a Dolce & Gabbana shoot. Another Dolce & Gabbana shoot. Fifteen years ago, lolling back in a boat off the same island, Gandy shot the picture that would make him and a tiny pair of white pants world famous. Except this work trip was a bit different, because for the first time ever he took both his children, three-year-old Matilda and one-year-old Tabitha, along with his partner, Stephanie Mendoros, a family barrister. Apart from being given a pink Dolce & Gabbana handbag, Matilda apparently found it quite boring and wanted to go swimming. Don’t you just love the sound of Matilda? 

We’re here to discuss his clothing brand. Gandy is modelling one of his own T-shirts, and I try not to stare at his upper arms because I’m a professional but my eye does occasionally slip and bursting out from under that T-shirt are a pair of Desperate Dan arms. But these aren’t just any old T-shirts. Every piece of Gandy’s clothing brand is designed to make us feel better. The Wellwear Care line – jogging bottoms and long-sleeved T-shirts – is infused with aloe vera to moisturise the skin. The Wellwear Breathe line – T-shirts and hoodies – is anti-odour. The new Wellwear Restore line – leggings and sweatshirts – is made from a cotton-blend with infrared properties, which reflects body heat back into the skin and supposedly relaxes the muscles and increases blood flow. First things first: is this a load of marketing nonsense? 

Not according to Gandy. “Why do some clothes make you feel good and confident and others don’t? We looked at studies showing a link between mental health and clothing, and if you’re comfortable in what you’re wearing, you feel better and that has a knock-on effect on your day.” Together with his best friend Charlie Tee, now the business’s managing director, they investigated further into the science behind softness. Why do we coo over cashmere and puppies? Why do we hold on to very worn, soft items in our wardrobe? The answer has been dubbed “dopamine dressing” and it’s the idea that the right clothes can spark joy, to borrow a phrase. The USP to his business, Gandy decided, would be a line of clothing as soft and soothing as cotton wool to make us happier. 

He’s “very involved” in the day-to-day running of the business from its Soho office, oversees its social media, and he’s even visited the Portuguese factory where everything’s made to ensure it’s not a sweatshop. Conscious that people are worrying about money, he also wants to keep prices as low as possible. How much is a T-shirt, I ask, wondering if this will trip him up, like a politician challenged on the price of milk. “Thirty-five quid,” he shoots back. It’s designed for men, but women are welcome to wear it too. On his website, one grandmother has left a happy review. Her daughter was breastfeeding but all her clothes stank of sour milk, so this grandmother bought one of Gandy’s scoop-necked anti-odour T-shirts for her. Problem solved.

He protests politely at the suggestion that going into business is a transition from modelling. “I don’t think people realise that, as a model, you’re self-employed from day one. You already have your own business. People perceive that I’m in the fashion world, but to me it’s always been the business world. They’re there for the red carpets and the parties and the lifestyle; I was there because I saw how it would expand my brand, and now the business.”

Does he want to be the male Gwyneth Paltrow then, I wonder, thinking of her £220 million empire, and that some of his wellness chat sounds faintly Goop-like. Gandy laughs. “What were her candles called?” he jokes, referring to Gwyneth’s dubiously-named “This Smells Like My Vagina” candle. Then, as if to prove me wrong, he goes on to talk in such detail about the brand’s sustainability and the organic materials they use that I confess, somewhere around the part where he’s banging on about plastic polyester particles from fast fashion polluting the sea, I drift off under the power of his hypnotic voice. It’s unexpected: he’s a Billericay boy, raised in Essex by working-class parents who worked in freight, but he has a surprisingly Radio 4 voice. “I’m always trying to get Billericay taken off my passport,” he jokes.

As a small boy Gandy wanted to be a vet, but decided that chemistry and biology were beyond him so left Essex for the University of Gloucestershire where he studied computing and marketing. That’s where it all happened; not quite in Gloucestershire but in London, after his flatmate secretly sent a photo of Gandy to a modelling competition run by ITV’s This Morning. He won and earned a contract with the modelling agency, Select. 

This is pretty much the only aspect of Gandy’s career that came about accidentally. Because while he may look like a Greek hero and says people often assume he’s a character from Zoolander who simply pulls on a pair of Y-fronts and pouts at the camera, he’s much, much smarter than that. I’ll admit, before we met, I wasn’t sure if he’d have much between the ears. Ears that he thinks are too big, by the by, so console yourself with that thought the next time you sigh into the mirror; even David Gandy has insecurities. And anyway, there’s plenty going on between those big old lugs. 

After five years of being a catalogue model (the anonymous types who model for, well, catalogues) Gandy told his agent that he wanted to become bigger. “I talked to the female models at the time, to Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford, and I realised they were all incredible businesswomen. They had teams and lawyers and managers.”

His agent warned it was a risk; Gandy was making good money from the catalogues but he’d have to give them up if he wanted to reposition and be taken seriously by the fashion world. He agreed and after two years, the gamble came off. Dolce & Gabbana cast him for its Light Blue fragrance campaign, shot in Capri by Mario Testino. Gandy and his pants appeared on a 50ft Times Square billboard, and both he and his pants became very, very famous. He didn’t expect it, he says, but his mum spotted that he might be a hit after he sent some photos from the Italian shoot. “I think this could be big,” she told him. Did his mum mean his pants or the campaign, I check. The campaign, Gandy clarifies. 

Huge modelling jobs for the likes of Hugo Boss, Zara, H&M and Massimo Dutti followed and, as the money rolled in, Gandy started making investments. “I have been very strategic,” he says. “Life is like a game of chess. You’ve got to move pieces to get to where you want to be, and often it diverts, but you have to have that ambition.” 

Investing is another risk that’s paid off since he’s reportedly now worth £12.5 million. As well as his clothing line, he has “four or five” other businesses that he’s involved in, including Savile Row Gin and London Sock Company, along with “about 20” smaller investments. 

Blimey. How does he manage to juggle business, picking up his daughter from school and retain that Michelangelo body? “I don’t stop between 7am and midnight,” says Gandy. Up he gets, then a quick walk around Richmond Park with Dora, then the nursery run, then it’s into the Wellwear office, or off to a shoot, or a site visit to the house he’s renovating in Richmond, then more business meetings, then the nursery pick-up, then he might cook a bowl of pasta for Stephanie who could be reading a legal document at home, then he goes to the gym around 9pm or even later. He goes to the gym every night?

“Five times a week,” he says, “for 45 minutes.” It’s just weights there; no running, no cardio. Otherwise he walks Dora. That’s his secret: weights and walking. Oh and 4,500 calories a day (protein; vegetables; supplements) to maintain those muscles. Then home from the gym before a few more hours on the laptop. 

This sounds a tiny bit boring, I suggest. Does he drink? 

“Yeah, definitely. It’s almost midday now, right?” he replies, with a big grin and a glance over his shoulder as if to summon a waiter to our table.

When will it be enough, I ask. He’s built a business empire, is still modelling, and is an ambassador for multiple businesses and charities, including Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. When will he be satisfied?

“When will it be enough?” Gandy murmurs. “Who knows?”

Then he settles our coffee bill (I know, a handsome man who has good manners, is charming, funny and likes dogs? It’s almost too much), before he and Dora set off for another meeting, another move to make on the David Gandy chessboard.