From boyband to leading man – Jenson Button’s fashion evolution

Jenson Button’s look has changed drastically over the years. From the young driver who spent his first fortune as quickly as he earned it, to a fairytale title-winner, and all the way to today as the elder statesman bringing a sartorial suave to the paddock, his personal style has run in parallel with his career.

As with many, each phase has left its mark. From the excess of his early 20s to the confidence of a man who has settled into what suits him, here we revisit Button through his ever-changing eras.

Early expressions

Button arrived at Williams in 2000, just five days after his 20th birthday, and dressed like a young man who embraced the new lifestyle and access his F1 debut afforded. Loaned out to Benetton and then Renault, his Monaco flat, Ferrari road car and 72-foot yacht drew more attention than his results, and his Benetton boss Flavio Briatore dismissed him in public as a ‘lazy playboy’.

He tells one story from this period. At 20, newly in F1 and with the keys to his first supercar, Button walked into a Milan nightclub in a hooded Prada puffer with the hood up.

Boyband at Honda

BAR-Honda took Button on in 2003, where his new team mate Jacques Villeneuve greeted him with the observation that he looked more like a boyband member than a racing driver. The look did little to contradict the 1997 World Champion — Button was all sun-bleached hair and easy West Country charm, rarely without a smile. Off duty, he favoured a relaxed, surfer-adjacent ease, tanned and unfussy.

The racing, meanwhile, was becoming considerably more serious. Podiums came, but wins were just out of reach — the winless-wonder label would follow him until the rain fell in Budapest in 2006. His first victory, an epic charge from 14th on the grid in a chaotic wet race, arrived at the 113th attempt.

Champagne yellow with Brawn GP

Button’s title came out of one of the most memorable seasons in modern F1. Honda pulled out over the winter of 2008 and left the team without an owner, until Ross Brawn led a management buyout and rebuilt it in a matter of weeks as Brawn GP. The car that arrived was the fastest on the grid, and the British driver seized the moment, winning six of the first seven races before holding on through a tightening second half to clinch the title in Brazil. At 29 – after the best part of a decade in the sport – he was a World Champion.

The new team meant new colours on his helmet. Button had always kept things patriotic up top, a Union Jack design with his initials on each side and the flag across the back.

For 2009, he kept the layout but stripped out the red and blue, and repainted it to match the Brawn car’s day-glo yellow, with the lettering and flag now in black. Some fans mourned the loss of the classic British colours, and with his team mate Rubens Barrichello going yellow too, it was often hard to tell them apart.

For his home race at Silverstone, Button took the design to new heights, running a one-off white lid covered in buttons and Union Flags alongside the words “Push the Button”, designed by a competition winner.

Brawn GP famously did not have a title sponsor, and their first commercial partner was Henri Lloyd, a Manchester-based lifestyle brand, signed just days before the opening race in Melbourne to supply teamwear and travel clothing. During this time, Button became synonymous with the now iconic fluoro yellow and white polos, which have gone on to be a popular collectors’ item.

Sharp at McLaren

With his title in the bag, Button ventured to McLaren in 2010, and this is where his look began to mature.

The well-known menswear brand Hugo Boss had dressed McLaren since 1981, meaning much of Button’s polos, travelwear, and formal kit in his first five seasons with the team were tailored to fit.

Out of the car, the Briton was rarely out of sportswear, having taken up triathlon to keep fit in the late 2000s and, in his time at McLaren, he was just as likely to be photographed at a circuit in training gear as in teamwear.

With his growing passion, Button launched The Jenson Button Trust Triathlon. The event went on to raise thousands of pounds for various charities. For a driver who had spent his early 20s associated with being a playboy, this was an early sign of a new outlook.

When his father John passed in January 2014, for Silverstone Button ran a tribute pink helmet, and asked his fans to wear pink in honour of his father’s pink shirts.

In a message he posted before his final race at Abu Dhabi in 2016, Button thanked his family, his teams, and the fans, whilst paying tribute to his late father.

For the occasion, he brought back the helmet design from his 2009 championship year, finished with a touch of pink for his dad, and signed off with the line that has stayed with him since: “I arrived with dreams and leave with memories.” He returned once more the following year, standing in at Monaco for Fernando Alonso.

Retiring in style

Away from an F1 cockpit, Button came to understand what he liked to wear, and it developed into a new career. He became the face of Hackett London, fronting campaigns that ranged from tailoring to a safari-themed shoot, and an investor in and ambassador for the menswear label LESTRANGE, whose pared-back trousers became his travelling uniform.

He has spoken about his wardrobe expanding over the decades as much as his car collection did, until he realised, in his words, that “more isn’t always better”, and scaled it back to a few dependable pieces that travelled well. The current look is clean and sharp – the wardrobe of a man whose style evolution has well and truly hit its peak.

His taste, by his own account, is uncomplicated. He likes clothes in classic colours, and wants a wardrobe that carries him from a walk to the pub to a tailored suit. “I just like clothes to fit well,” as he puts it.