Today, no one in the F1 world is associated with fashion more closely than Lewis Hamilton is. He is a true fashionista, whether it is in the paddock or a ramp in New York or Paris. However, things weren’t always easy, and Hamilton wasn’t always the man with good fashion taste that the F1 community has grown accustomed to.
Despite having loved fashion all his life, Hamilton looks back on his outfits from his early Mercedes days with distaste. In an interview, when he was asked if his fashion sense had ‘evolved’ throughout the course of his career, the Briton replied, “Massively”.
“I was just looking at a picture today of even when I joined this team and it was pretty bad, some of the stuff I was wearing. Oh god,” he added.
Has your fashion sense evolved alongside your career?
Lewis: “Massively. I was just looking at a picture today of even when I joined this team and it was pretty bad, some of the stuff I was wearing. Oh god”
“But I guess that comes as a part of obviously knowing how you… pic.twitter.com/kDlwHmVmtR
— sin ⁴⁴ (@44britcedes) December 25, 2024
Hamilton went on to talk about the want to present himself well. When he was young, that thought never entered his mind, but with time, it became a priority. “I like to put more effort into how I present myself. And I’m much happier, I would say, today with how I’m able to show up.”
While most drivers in F1 would arrive at the race weekends wearing their team merch, Hamilton changed the game. He would dress up in style, turning heads wherever he went which also inspired others.
How Hamilton broke the norm
When Hamilton first got to F1, he was forced to wear the team uniform at all given times. No one had ever given him the green light to dress freely, but he decided to take the risk.
In a conversation with Times Life & Style’s YouTube channel, the seven-time World Champion had revealed, “So I started to take the risk and do it even though I wasn’t allowed to and eventually they noticed the positive effect it was having. I had to break some rules.”
So, even though his choices were questionable, they made a statement. He wasn’t going to be pinned down by rules regarding how he would be expected to dress up before suiting up in his team overalls. Because of this step taken by Hamilton, drivers like Pierre Gasly and Zhou Guanyu have also made fashion in F1 a part of their lives.
