Words: Alex Woodhall
There are few men more recognisable than David Gandy. He may not be a household name but his stint as the muse and face of Dolce & Gabbana has given him a global image: you’ve probably seen him in his underwear, your partner, mum and grandmother almost certainly have. Fronting arguably the most famous fragrance campaign ever, the Italian label’s Light Blue scent, he knows a thing or two about what does and doesn’t smell good.
Is there a particular rule you stick to when applying fragrances?
“I’m not sure if you’re the same, but if I go in to have a hug with someone, or get close to someone, if you feel like you’re eating their fragrance, it’s a bit off-putting. The trouble is when you get used to the smell of your fragrance, you don’t think you’ve put enough on, so a lot of people go a little bit over the top with fragrance. Generally, it’s a couple of spritzes on the neck, and then pulse points, so a spray on the wrists and rub. Nothing too elaborate or fancy.”
What can we find you wearing fragrance wise day-to-day?
“Actually it’s that bottom row over there, the [Dolce & Gabbana] Velvet collection. I wouldn’t go as far as to say they’re a secret, but they’re only sold in a handful of boutiques and they’re much more exclusive and luxurious than anything Tom Ford or anyone does.”
You front a very famous campaign. What attracted you to Light Blue as a fragrance?
“Now I would choose a fragrance and be part of the creative and everything else, but back then I was a fresh young face and I was just very much happy to be part of the Dolce & Gabbana family at the time. Then learning more about Light Blue, and Light Blue is that escapism. It’s that great story of the guy and the girl and the romance, and of course you try and get that with everything and I try to get that with all of my projects now because of how successful Light Blue and Dolce & Gabbana have been with that: it’s tough to replicate that.”
“It does actually mean that [escapism], the first time that I smelt Light Blue was in Capri, diving into the water. I never got to smell it before that, as I wasn’t part of that creative team. Hence why when people say that Light Blue campaign changed the male modelling industry, it changed fashion. I was like: ‘Great, I had nothing to do with that apart from I worked out in the gym for a while,’ and I didn’t do that knowing I was getting the campaign. Literally, I did the Dolce & Gabbana show on almost the Saturday, the day before my agent says: ‘Ok, we’re negotiating on something, I think it’s a fragrance.’ By the Sunday I was off to Capri. I knew nothing about it really and we’ve had the variations but now we’re back to the original and it’s won something like 40 awards this fragrance now, it’s in the top 5 across demographics and the stats behind it are really astonishing. Especially when we live in a world where everything’s at a super pace, everything is changing so rapidly, there’s a different face of everything all the time and we’re in the tenth year of the story and it’s a success nobody else has been able to replicate.”
Can you pinpoint a reason why Light Blue has become a modern classic, shall we say?
“I wouldn’t say that lightly, but thanks to the creative of Mario Testino and Dolce & Gabbana it’s now an iconic image. I think it was the days before social media and everything else and it created just this phenomenal response. 11 million people watched it in the first few days and that was without social media, the creative took on a world of its own and people loved it. It was something very different and it’s a beautiful thing: around that time in 2007 which was kind of tricky with the economy and everything else and when you can create that escapism, people do buy into that. They love that when times are hard and it is creating that story, it’s a very positive lifestyle and fragrance I always think.
It’s nothing too intense. It’s called Light Blue and that’s exactly what it is, it’s very citrusy, it’s very intense and everyone loves the summer. It kind of reminds you that, on a deep dark winter’s day in London, you beg for those days, in Capri, jumping off a boat. There are other great fragrances around but in the commercials and the creative, there’s absolutely nothing else like it.”
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