David Gandy

YOU might not know the face – but you’ll definitely recognise the package.

Sexy David Gandy is the object of lust to a whole nation of women thanks to a memorable appearance in a perfume advert wearing little more than a tiny pair of white pants.

The ad — for designer brand Dolce & Gabbana’s latest aftershave Light Blue — shows an extremely provocative close-up shot of David in the skimpy briefs as he gives the camera his best come-hither stare.

And despite looking every inch the Italian stallion in the saucy pics, the 6ft 2in hunk actually comes from Billericay in ESSEX.

David, 27, says: “People are always surprised when I speak. They can’t believe I am a born-and-bred Essex boy. Everyone asks me if there is Mediterranean in my blood — but my mum’s ancestors are Scottish and my dad is from East London.”

The marketing graduate says the reaction to the ad — where he floats on a dinghy in the sea wearing those soaking wet trunks and passionately kisses the female model lying beneath him — is “hugely flattering”.

He adds: “People tell me women are going crazy. But it’s not like I’ve got them screaming and running after me in the street.”

And great news, girls — the stud is SINGLE after splitting up with his model lover of three years.

He says: “Everyone’s looking for love but all the travelling I do means it’s difficult to have a stable relationship. At the moment work is my main interest but if the right lady came along . . . I like classically beautiful women — but she has to have a bad sense of humour to laugh at my jokes.”

As well as beauty, the man has brains too, saying Size Zero models do nothing for him.

He says: “I don’t like a very, very skinny girl. I find it quite off-putting and a little bit upsetting as they can’t be that healthy. I like my women to be womanly.”

David’s parents are both entrepreneurs who run a freight company and have been property developers in Florida for more than ten years. Referring to his BIG modelling break, he says he was embarrassed to show his parents because he didn’t think it was going to be such a large crotch shot.

He says: “Then the attention started to build and the ad was everywhere. My friends would text me saying, ‘David, are you sure your pictures big enough?’”
It certainly is.

And it doesn’t get any bigger than a 50ft version of the ad — shot by Princess Diana’s favourite photographer Mario Testino — which stops traffic in New York’s Times Square.

The bronzed Adonis has not always been a big noise in the fashion world.

After David graduated from the University Of Gloucestershire in 2001, his mates secretly entered him into a male model competition on Richard and Judy’s This Morning show.
And despite the self-confessed “petrol-head” getting his dream summer job at car mag Auto Express, David won and landed a contract with top agency Select Model Management. His first five years as a jobbing model were not entirely successful. There were endless castings for catwalk shows, and rejections, before his career took off last year.

He says: “At the shows you all get treated like s**t. “When I came into modelling my look — which is a classic ‘manly’ look — wasn’t in. Androgynous, thin guys were in.”

Last year, David really hit the big-time when Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana selected him to front their campaign for the new fragrance Light Blue Pour Homme.

Shot on location in a secluded cove on the coast of Capri last April, reserved English gent David had to have some serious coaching from photographer Mario Testino on how to be a Latin lover.
David says: “Mario said, ‘You need to kiss her — stop being so English and just get on with it’ — so I did.

“The model with me was lovely and we got on really well. I lost count of the number of times we had to kiss. It wasn’t too shabby.”

He admits it was probably the best day’s work he has ever had — and despite a crew holding the boat steady, he says it is a compliment when people say it looks real.

His appearance in the advert has heralded a change in the look for male models. The rock ’n’ roll waif — so fashionable over the past couple of seasons — and pioneered by Pete Doherty and other singers such as Razorlight’s Johnny Borrell — have been ditched in favour of the “real” man.

Mario said: “David has something of what the Eighties supermodels have. He radiates health and positivity. It’s exciting because it signifies a real shift in men’s fashion. That whole skinny, decadent look is very limited. The male model world is changing. Blokes with muscles and chiselled good looks are the current trend — and those with a history of manual labour are hotter than most.”

Former brickie Quin Huntley is the hunk in the Walkers Crisps ads starring alongside Charlotte Church. And another Essex brickie turned male model, Paul Sculfor, is more famous these days for his love interest — Jennifer Aniston — than for his Levi ads. Another male model working hard is Keira Knightley’s ex, Belfast-born Jamie Dornan.

The 25-year-old shot to fame in a Calvin Klein jeans advert with Kate Moss but wants to be an actor and is known for being a “man’s man”. The D&G ad has certainly got David noticed — and it has added a Pound or

two to his bank account.

He has splashed some of his earnings on a Sixties Porsche to add to his collection of sports cars that includes a Lotus Elise and an Audi TT.

But what about the rumours that he needed a bit of extra, ahem, packing in the pant department?

“Absolutely not!” splutters David.

And proof is out there — somewhere — as David admits that the original shots were even more risqué than the current pictures.

He says, “The pants got a bit wet and went see-through, so apparently they had to superimpose the white trunks over the top of the original photos.”

Now that really WOULD be an advert worth seeing.