From the grid to the catwalk

Twenty years after Jenson Button’s first Grand Prix victory in Hungary, F1.com revisits how the seven-time race winner’s personal style evolved in parallel with his career, both on track and away from it. From a young driver who spent his first fortune as quickly as he earned it to a fairytale World Champion and now an elder statesman with sartorial suave in the paddock, each phase has left its mark.

Early expressions and boyband charm

Button arrived at Williams in 2000, just five days after his 20th birthday, dressing 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, prompting Benetton boss Flavio Briatore to dismiss him publicly as a ‘lazy playboy’.

He recalls walking into a Milan nightclub at 20, newly in F1 and with the keys to his first supercar, in a hooded Prada puffer with the hood up.

At Honda BAR from 2003, 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 — sun-bleached hair and easy West Country charm, rarely without a smile. Off duty he favoured a relaxed, surfer-adjacent ease, tanned and unfussy, while on track podiums came but wins remained elusive 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 modern F1’s most memorable seasons. Honda pulled out over the winter of 2008, leaving the team ownerless until Ross Brawn led a management buyout and rebuilt it in weeks as Brawn GP. The car was the fastest on the grid and Button seized the moment, winning six of the first seven races before holding on to clinch the title in Brazil at 29.

The new team meant new colours on his helmet. Button had long kept things patriotic, 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 lettering and flag now in black. Some fans mourned the loss of the classic British colours, and with team-mate Rubens Barrichello also going yellow, the pair were often hard to tell apart.

For his home race at Silverstone he ran 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 had no title sponsor, and first commercial partner Henri Lloyd, a Manchester-based lifestyle brand, signed just days before the opening race in Melbourne to supply teamwear and travel clothing. Button became synonymous with the now iconic fluoro yellow and white polos, a popular collectors’ item.

Sharp at McLaren

With his title in the bag, Button moved to McLaren in 2010, where his look began to mature. Hugo Boss had dressed McLaren since 1981, meaning much of his polos, travelwear and formal kit in his first five seasons were tailored to fit.

Out of the car the Briton was rarely out of sportswear, having taken up triathlon in the late 2000s. At McLaren he was just as likely to be photographed at a circuit in training gear as in teamwear, and he launched The Jenson Button Trust Triathlon, which raised thousands for various charities.

For a driver once associated with playboy excess, it was an early sign of a new outlook. When his father John passed in January 2014, Button ran a tribute pink helmet at Silverstone and asked fans to wear pink in honour of his father’s pink shirts. In a message before his final race at Abu Dhabi in 2016 he thanked family, teams and fans whilst paying tribute to his late father, bringing back the 2009 championship helmet design finished with a touch of pink and signing off with the line that has stayed with him: "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 the 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 from tailoring to a safari-themed shoot, and an investor in and ambassador for 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.