The Fast Lane: Grand Prix inspired menswear to get your pulse racing

Sometimes fashion is about tapping into a want – or even a need – to look sophisticated, polished, grown-up. Other times, it’s about a gleeful indulgence, such as of the urge of many men, well into middle age, to emulate heroes through the clothes they put on their back. Look at the popularity of football gear as everyday attire, a way of showing a tribal affiliation – and, perhaps, a provocative form of battle dress when sported in the wrong territories. Plus it’s probably David Beckham’s public image and sporting prowess that’s shifting his H&M pants, rather than the design quality. Ditto his fragrances - Coty sells around £70 million annually Beckham-branded men’s scent.

But blokes aren’t just pulled into dressing themselves in the gear of the beautiful game, at least according to fashion designers. This spring/summer, the clobber sported by Lewis Hamilton has become the fashionable sports style to sport. I don’t mean his decidedly dodgy suits and diamond studs, but rather the gear he wears for the Grand Prix, garishly colour-blocked and branded to the hilt.

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Prada and Moschino – whose similarity ends at their Italian appellation – were leading the race. Moschino’s Jeremy Scott collided cars and Casanova. Think a mix of eighteenth-century brocade and stretchy sports gear. The latter was far more effective (and attractive) than the former, and by and large forms the core of the label’s spring menswear offering, with graphic logos emblazoned across simple sportwear pieces. Miuccia Prada’s take was more intriguing – sportswear was colour-blocked like pit-stop mechanic’s overalls in thick polyester, bands of neon inserts and piping delineating garments. The racing car became a repeat motif, printed on zip-front shirts of knitted into sweaters. They had an endearingly naïve quality, like kiddie clothing blown up big.

There is a sort of childhood charm to these clothes – they strike you as clothes men might love, but women might hate, embedded as they are in juvenile loves of testosterone-injected sports, fast cars, bright colours. Lad’s rags, really. Truth be told, wearing them head-to-toe would be a mistake, and would wind up making you look like you spend every waking hour playing Playstation and sleep in a bed shaped like a Ferrari (probably alone). Nevertheless, as isolated items – a colour-injected jacket, a sporty print sweatshirt - these bright and poppy motifs will doubtless add a much-needed pep to your wardrobe come summer.