‘KATE MOSS TAUGHT ME EVERYTHING I KNOW!’

As the world’s most successful male model, DAVID GANDY has spent his career watching and learning from the best. Now, he tells Hattie Crisell, he’s launching his own brand to give the men in our lives a touch of the Gandy magic…

As a kid, the now supermodel David Gandy spent a lot of time in the school library. ‘I used to go there to read James Herriot, because I wanted to be a vet,’ he says. I ask whether he’s sorry that he didn’t pursue that dream but at this, he bursts out laughing. ‘It’s not just about being an animal lover, it’s the A-levels you need in biology and chemistry,’ he says. Warming to the theme, he suggests: ‘I could give the animals a hug and ask if they feel better? But no. I think it’s important to know your limitations.’

David is the first to point out that he didn’t achieve great academic success. Yet I leave our chat – over tea outside a smart hotel in Soho, London – feeling that, when it comes to building a career, he’s been very smart indeed. It all started in 2001, when he was doing a marketing degree at the University of Gloucestershire. His friends entered him into a modelling competition on ITV’S

This Morning, which he won, securing a contract with Select Model Management.

Pictures from the time show him as a nervous, classically handsome 21-year-old, 6ft 2in, with broad shoulders, dark curly hair and big blue eyes. Yet his aesthetic was out of step with the skinny, androgynous models of the era. He worked mostly for catalogues until 2006, when an advertising gig for Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Blue fragrance propelled him into the big time: think an Adonis in white shorts, reclining on a boat, his sculpted body glistening in the sunlight.

Today he is smouldering in a more discreet way, in a T-shirt, trousers and a flat cap; his beloved rescue dog, yorkie mix Dora, snoozes by his feet. He’s in his 20th year of modelling – ‘Which seems mad,’ he says. As iconic as those Dolce & Gabbana images may be,