Fashion mightn’t be the first thing you look for when watching an F1 racing championship, but historically, it’s been there in spades.
The motorsport entails a select few world-renowned racers navigating a tight, windy track in some of the fastest vehicles on Earth, and the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne this March kicks off a year of racing. F1 has an unsurprisingly enormous fanbase, helped along by Netflix’s wildly popular Drive to Survive documentary, which charts the high-octane and high-stakes life of Grand Prix participants, including Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, and Australia’s own Daniel Ricciardo. With one of the most rarefied professions in the world comes a particularly elite clientele, and even though all eyes are on the race when it begins, it’s important to dress the part.
In that sense, it’s no surprise trackside at F1 championships has been frequented by fashion’s biggest stars, who bring their own A-game each time. There are those who opt for all-out glamour, like Bella Hadid, who attended 2018’s Monaco Grand Prix in a white netted dress by Australia’s own Dion Lee, which brought a futuristic edge to match the high-tech event. But obvious glamour isn’t always required of dressing up for the F1; consider Kate Moss, who attended in 1999 and channelled both the theme and the minimalist style of the era in racing green cargo trousers and a colour-coordinating corset (albeit by Prada, from Miuccia Prada’s epoch-defining autumn/winter ’99 collection).
Through the 2000s, things got a little looser and more effortless; consider Gisele Bündchen in a classic white singlet and jeans, embodying the racing vibe with her accessory of choice, one of Balenciaga’s iconic ‘Motorcycle’ bags, which are perennially on-trend. Perhaps the best thing about F1 is that there’s no dress code, which supermodel Irina Shayk tapped into with a sheer shocking dress at Miami’s F1 championship last year—though there were still sporting elements in the outfit, like a cap and white t-shirt. Start your engines, and may the best trackside look, win.
