A Fan Designed our F1 Drivers' Outfits

I've always loved F1, I've been watching it since I was a little kid. I'm Oliver Kearney, I'm a British fashion designer. Here as part of the V-Car and Create platform, working on the looks for Alvin and Liam for Silverstone they're going to be wearing in partnership with Hugo. I love fashion, funnily enough when I sort of see an opportunity that I can design for some F1 drivers. Hi, how are you? Nice to meet you mate, how's it going? It's just, it's a crazy coincidence that it just happens to sort of bring my two greatest passions together. It's all I could ever want. I'm Leon Keyworth, I'm the vice president of design for menswear for Hugo, Hugo Boss. We worked with the V-Car and Create platform, we wanted to promote young fashion talent together. So using that platform, we reached out to universities in the UK and then elsewhere and we've kind of selected from there onwards somebody who will design outfits for the V-Car team. Hi, I'm Oliver Kearney, I'm a British fashion designer. Here as part of the V-Car and Create platform, working on the looks for Alvin and Liam for Silverstone and yeah, I'm just excited to talk you through both of the looks. It's quite selfish but I sort of design a lot of the looks based off of stuff that I would want to wear and sort of tailoring it to my experiences growing up. I really love just being given projects such as this one and just sort of understanding what my take would be on it and sort of using, you know, further outside experiences to understand where the narrative can go. So this is sort of where I figure most things out that I'm designing. I'll just relax when I want a bit of peace and quiet. Just got sort of loads of my old previous collection research up on the walls as well as some sort of artworks. I kind of just used all my leftover fabrics from that shirt, pants shirt, I was using all the reclaimed sort of fabrics from that. I had tons of leftovers so I thought, you know, I'll whack that up there. I write everything in these two notebooks here. I have one for my ideas and then one for my patterns because it's just scrawlings of what pops into my head at the time and then from that I go to the patterns. I've always loved F1. I've been watching it since I was a little kid. I love fashion. So funnily enough when I sort of see an opportunity that I can design for some F1 drivers, it's a crazy coincidence that it just happens to sort of bring my two greatest passions together. So I feel like it's kind of, it's a great collaboration to see sort of similar mindsets brought together. We selected a winner. They then designed a couple of outfits for the drivers. They've worked with our design team as well and the guys in my team in London to select fabrics, to work through the details. So essentially the whole concept for both looks was we take the details of racing, the fabrics from tailoring and then just like the fit and style of the streetwear and just blend them all in together. I think we start on look two, a lot of like the shirting detail. I kind of was drawing inspiration from this shirt I made at uni which was sort of my take on a shacket or like a shirt jacket. A lot of the classical tailoring elements sort of came from the fabrics we chose. We chose a lot of wool mixes, again just fabrics that you see on suits, a lot of shirting. So these are sort of lightweight fabrics that work well for the weather and then when it came to sort of the race suits we were using a lot of sort of the movement-y, shoulder-y gussets along the back panels. The trousers is kind of based off like a motorcycle pant, like a moto pant. Yeah. But it's cut in a classic jogger, tracksuit bottom. Again so like the shirt for example, it will feature again like the elbow padding which references the motocross, the racing. So if it gets to a stage where maybe the jacket's too hot, Silverstone, you know, it could be super sunny, wipe the jacket off but then it still, it doesn't, nothing looks out of place. It looks intentional. So when I saw the brief for Silverstone I knew that the main goal should sort of be to how can we translate these classical British elements within each look but also not just making it look like heritage, also understanding how we can make this contemporary and it feels on theme to Formula One as well as just Britain. Yeah, it's such a surreal experience sort of meeting the drivers in person. Obviously, you have this idea in your head of what they're going to be like before you meet them. Hi, how are you? Nice to meet you mate, how's it going? Hi mate, how are you? Good to see you again, how's it going? Yeah, good, thanks. How are you doing? Nice to see you. Really understanding they're super down to earth and then working with them sort of to understand which garments they sort of had a preference to. Yeah, essentially it's just like you're kind of still wearing a race suit but it's not like a costume, you know, it's more laid back and wearable. Getting their feedback was so important because at the end of the day it's them that's wearing it so if they're not comfortable or they're not happy then it's not going to be as good as it can be. So although you go into it with your own ideas of what the garments should look like if you don't gain the feedback of who's going to be wearing it you're never going to create sort of the perfect outfit. No, that's what I was just wondering because I'd quite like a longer pant relative to the top. He wants to be looking tall. Okay. For me more simple, like that's what I like but if we're doing something more unique and special for Silverstone then obviously I'm open to doing something cool and I like what's here as well so I trust you on the pants. It can kind of, especially in these images it looks like a bit hexed and crazy but I think the fabrics we've chosen work super well together. Like seeing the fabrics actually looks quite cool like it looks better than what it does in here. Obviously that photo is crazy now that I see it up close. How old is that? I don't even know where that photo's from. Type into Google, Liam Lawson, first row of pictures. Really? That came up? You put hairspray in that day. I got really fixated on the idea of having these sort of motorsport biker element knee pads and there was maybe some pushback from Hugo but I was super adamant that it was a design element that needed to be brought across to sort of add something more interesting to the outfit. Because like this is like a moto detail kind of like a biker trousers. I love bikers. Just like looking at the references you have a couple of extra panels at the front. Again it's not in like a crazy fabric so it's relaxed. It's really hard for me to imagine it but I mean I trust the process so. Luckily gaining the feedback of the drivers they also agreed. So really trying to understand how the driver's preferences fit into the looks themselves so they have their own personality within each look. When I visited the factory I was lucky enough to sort of take back the samples of each of the garments. So for example this fabric here is the shirting fabric that's been used for Arvid's shirt and also the trousers which is a matching set. Quite a striking fabric but I feel like why not? Why not? It's the perfect weight. This one is my absolute favourite which is the jacket fabric for Liam's look. I've never really seen a garment in something like this. It's almost like furniture fabric to me. This is feeling like I could picture a really nice sofa that I'd want to sit on in this. But why sit on a sofa when you could wear one other jacket? When's it ready? When are we going to see it? Silverstone. Silverstone, that's ages away. Okay. We've flown the designer out to Germany to our headquarters in Metzingen near Stuttgart. Brilliant. Well I'm glad I chose only a few options. You know I'm glad I didn't go too overboard with it. So seeing that canvas in person is crazy. It's just obviously you know it's such a big operation but then going there in person essentially a whole entire factory on one floor there that can whip up sort of any designs within a week is so insane to see. You have Liam's outfit here and then you've got Arvid's here. So I'll let you take a look. Feel free to use the table if you want to open them up and try them on, yeah. Yeah so being in Germany we kind of we figured out some smaller details. Seeing the details on this. This is all I could ever want. Lovely elbow pads. That's so good. This is kind of like the detail that I'm most excited for is the back flap. I don't know what it is but everything I've always designed has it and to like see it made in a proper factory is pretty surreal. It's like your signature. It's like my little signature motif I guess I'd say. And yeah just seeing it like come to life like this. It's so good. And then the same on the front and then oh yeah with the little concealed zipper underneath. So they brought in a fit model who is kind of like a similar size build to Arvid and Liam. We could sort of test the garments on him to understand maybe what we need tweaking. There was a few things where my realisation sort of didn't line up with Hugo's so we changed those like the waistband had some extra panels on. Nothing crazy, nothing major but again it's all part of the process that you need to see in the physical form that sort of technical drawings on your laptop you can't see. But it's not, it doesn't feel like a costume. That's the thing. It feels like everything's there for a purpose and especially when you're like just a soft elastic instead of like a ribbon. Yeah great job. A lot of the time you'll sort of in your head you'll design a jacket in a fabric and when it's a tiny square of fabric you think oh this is going to be perfect when it's a wraparound giant trench coat and then in reality when it's actually scaled up and it's on there it's like this is too much. This does not look right at all. So no this is the best time to sort of visualise how the fabric looks with each garment. I'm a fan of the snaps but it's a bit yeah because I think when Alvin actually wears it if it's not done up it's just going to look a bit yeah but you know that's part of the process you know it can't all be perfect. As much as I love getting positive feedback it's more the negative feedback that really interests me because I think the best elements of fashion is what sparks a discussion and understanding what people dislike about something usually is more impactful and sort of seeing what arguments are made for and against it's so great just seeing yeah discussions being made about garments. When I'm a one-man team designing on my own you have a very narrow-minded path of how you want to accomplish something but going to Hugo where it's such a large company with different ideas and values gaining that sort of feedback as well is so vital. So next step is we're off to Silverstone and then we get to actually see the garments realised on Alvin and Liam. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it and seeing their reaction to them. So it's pretty cool the guys have done a very good job at Hugo so yeah very happy with it. Shout out Hugo. How are we feeling then? Yeah it's really good yeah how are you? Mate buzzing you know like kind of just seeing it from was it like two three months ago when we did that like half an hour thing and then now it's here it's crazy. Were you saying like the tee as well it kind of matches the helmet? We were doing like the sketches and stuff. It's just so surreal obviously you see it on the model when we did the thing but then actually seeing them sort of walk in I obviously love F1 and love fashion and seeing it together. The trousers to be honest is kind of what took me by surprise I was always in my head I was like Liam's jacket that's like the number one piece for me but then I don't know today kind of seeing the trousers in person like if I had to take something home now I think that's what I'd sort of lean towards and that's such a crazy experience really. It's so strange obviously when you're sort of approached with the pitch to put something together you're like oh you don't really almost put too much thought into I'd like to have a jacket I'd like to have a trouser and then from seeing those initial sketches to how it is today and then walking in like and then that process is just it's crazy just such a great opportunity to be here and then sort of just A do what I love and then also get to watch a sport that I love and seeing both worlds combine you know yeah I'm just so so happy with this opportunity. Yeah I think my biggest sort of takeaway from this competition is just being yourself I think it's so important that you were chosen to get your own message across and you're given an opportunity to present it on such a large platform that it's really important that although you're given a brief and a certain design project it is your own narrative that you need to bring across.