From Playboy to Polished: Jenson Button's Two-Decade Fashion Journey

Twenty years after Jenson Button's first Grand Prix victory in Hungary, F1.com explores how his personal style evolved alongside his career, both on the grid and away from it. From the young driver who spent his first fortune as quickly as he earned it, to a fairytale title-winner, and finally to the elder statesman bringing sartorial suave to the paddock, Button's fashion evolution runs in parallel with his racing career.

Early Expressions: The Playboy Years

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. His Benetton boss Flavio Briatore even dismissed him in public as a 'lazy playboy'.

Button recalls one memorable story from this period: at 20, newly in F1 and with the keys to his first supercar, he walked into a Milan nightclub in a hooded Prada puffer with the hood up. The excess of his early 20s defined this era as much as any racing achievement.

The Boyband Era at Honda BAR

When BAR-Honda took Button on in 2003, his new team mate Jacques Villeneuve greeted him with a telling observation: he looked more like a boyband member than a racing driver. The observation wasn't without merit — 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.

Championship 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, leaving 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 Button seized the moment, winning six of the first seven races before holding on to clinch the title in Brazil at 29 years old — after the best part of a decade in the sport.

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.

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. During this time, Button became synonymous with the now iconic fluoro yellow and white polos, which have gone on to be popular collectors' items.

Maturation 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. 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, an event that 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, Button ran a tribute pink helmet for Silverstone, and asked his fans to wear pink in honour of his father's pink shirts. In his final race message at Abu Dhabi in 2016, he thanked his family, teams, and fans while paying tribute to his late father, bringing back the helmet design from his 2009 championship year finished with a touch of pink. He signed off with the line that has stayed with him since: "I arrived with dreams and leave with memories."

The Modern Era: Clean, Sharp, and Refined

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 ranging from tailoring to safari-themed shoots, and an investor in and ambassador for the menswear label LESTRANGE, whose pared-back trousers became his travelling uniform.

Button has spoken about his wardrobe expanding over the decades until he realised 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. As he puts it simply: "I just like clothes to fit well."