David Gandy is a big guy. And I mean, really big. In fact, all I can think about is how enormous he is. But I should probably add that he's fully clothed and I am referring to his stature – all 1 metre and 91 centimetres of it – not to mention his handshake, which envelopes my entire hand.
Dressed in a dazzling white t-shirt and skinny jeans with a stylish blazer, he's also ridiculously handsome. Not in a conventional sense. His nose has been broken and he has a scar below his right eye from a disastrous New York taxi ride eight years ago, when a friend accidentally slammed the cab door in his face.
“There was a lot of blood," he recalls. " I think my mate probably did think he'd ended my career at one point. It was two weeks before I shot the Light Blue ad and it looked horrendous. I had a huge black eye and yes, I guess it was a bit of a worry. Eight stitches later.”
The 34-year-old Englishman from Essex might be the world's foremost male model, with so much written about that body but in the early days, the fashion was more for weedy looking men. At model castings he was always greeted with, “Hey, it's the big guy!” and as he tells me, “I couldn't even get one leg in the trousers at a Dior shoot.”
Everything changed in 2006 though, when he appeared in the now infamous Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue TV commercial. Or, as he's been known to call it, the “on the boat with the pants” ad.
Shot by famous fashion photographer Mario Testino, it featured Gandy relaxing on a boat drifting in the Mediterranean, in tiny white trunks. The raunchy TV spot featuring him frolicking in the boat with sexy Bianca Balti got 11 million hits online and saw a 15-metre billboard of them displayed in Times Square. David Gandy mania ensued, everyone wanted to know who the hunk in the white trunks was.
He has certainly caused a seismic shift in the male fashion industry from the skinny to more masculine and there's no question he raised the bar in the six-pack stakes. But how does he keep that body looking so perfect? He shrugs.
“I never really know how to answer that question because people expect some amazing shortcut or fitness secret and it simply doesn't exist. It's just a lot of hard work unfortunately," he says.
“When everyone else is out partying late at night or curled up at home watching a film, I am probably at the gym, usually around 9:30pm to 10:30pm. It's my release and now, it's just a part of my routine. I played so much sport when I was younger that I am used to training. It’s quite simple really but then I guess I've been doing it for so many years I know the rights and wrongs. Basically, the more sweat and tears, the better the results.”
“I even brought out a David Gandy mobile fitness app a few years ago just because so many people would ask me how I keep in shape,” he adds.
What does he get up to in his spare time? “I am a complete petrol-head,” confesses David, who got his racing licence in 2012. “My love of motoring was already established by the time I bought my first car, a Fiesta Ghia with electric windows that would only open if you pressed the button and banged on the door. We called it 'The Beast'. I remember taking a girl on a date in it. Both the doors broke and she had to climb through a window. It's not surprising that I never saw her again.”
Ask him if he's dating anyone now and he remains tight lipped. He’s simply much too much of a gentleman to give anything away. Which only makes us love him more.
WHO David Gandy
FROM England
AGE 34-years-old
WHY There’s more than meets the eye for this marketing graduate, he recently started his own charity, an underwear label, a mobile fitness app, writes a blog for Vogue and reviews cars for GQ.
