Driving is an occasion. It's time to dress like it

Now that the average new car has become more ‘domestic appliance’ than ‘romantic means of transport’, few drivers feel the need to don special clothing before getting behind the wheel.

Not like in the early years of the automobile, when harness maker Alfred Dunhill saw the money-making potential in the ‘new horsepower,’ quickly building-up a catalogue of ‘Motorities’ packed with ankle-length motoring coats, sheepskin-lined gauntlets and oilskin chauffeur’s caps.

For £5 5s, Dunhill would even sell you a combined trouser and knee apron number that was ‘indispensable to drivers of Panhard, Daimler and all cars with pedal manipulation. It is made of best calf leather, lined woollen cloth, is absolutely storm and wind proof, and so designed as to leave the legs perfectly free…..’

So-called ‘drivers’ don’t know they’re born these days, with their heated seats and steering wheels and phone apps that warm-up their interiors before they’ve even left the house. Which perhaps makes it all the more surprising that car clothing has made a comeback.

Not so much pre-War knee aprons, but items that were popular during the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, i.e before they came to attract ridicule when worn by people driving around in Morris Marinas and Ford Zephyrs, safely sealed them from the elements .

We’re talking about garments such as driving gloves (perforated leather and string-backed variety) and the once-essential ‘car coat’, a creation that tailoring guru David Saxby says was born out of necessity when driving positions changed from upright to laid-back.

Long, old-style coats got in the way, so the buttock-skimming car coat was born — shorter, easier to handle the controls in, and easier to walk in, too.

Typically made from sheepskin, suede or corduroy, the once ubiquitous car coat became as synonymous with well-to-do businessmen as with a certain type of ‘geezer’ — hence their appearance in period television shows as diverse as The Good Life (worn by plastics exec Jerry Leadbetter) and The Sweeney (worn by maverick detective Jack Regan).

Scotland’s House of Bruar does one in herringbone tweed for £295, Cordings offers a water-resistant effort (£495) — or, instead of spending £4,495 on a decent second-hand motor, you could buy Loro Piana’s ‘Ghibli’ model.

Driving glasses are also back thanks, in part, to the revival of the Italian Renauld brand that created the uber-cool shades worn by actor Rossano Brazzi as he threads his ‘Rosso’ coloured Lamborghini Miura through the Italian alps at the start of 1969’s gold-robbery caper The Italian Job.

For £1,595, Renauld will sell you a pair just like Rossano’s. Or you could have some the same as Steve McQueen wore in the mind-numbing 1971 car race movie Le Mans (£995), or a copy of the ‘Renauld 61s’ worn by Scottish Formula One (F1) star Jim Clark during the 1960s.

Moving to the lower half of the body, what about ‘driving trousers’? I’m not sure these existed ‘back in the day’, but they do now — at Porsche Design, at least.

According to its website, the £260 ‘Active’ driving trouser is ‘made from the finest Italian fabric’ with that most middle-aged of touches, ‘an elastic waistband’ and a ‘drawstring with Porsche Design branding’.

And if that’s not already a bridge too far towards being properly dressed for the morning commute, the purpose-built strides ‘go perfectly with the active driving blouson, or for business, with the active driving blazer…… for all-over athleisure’. Ouch.

But as anyone who has watched those YouTube videos of racing drivers frantically ‘heel and toe-ing’, the most important piece of driving kit is the footwear.

Sporty types favour the race-approved ‘bootees’ by firms such as Sparco and OMP or, for classic car fans, the vintage-look Pacto models.

But if you just want a shoe for regular driving, it's hard to beat, well, what’s known as a driving shoe — a soft, suede or leather moccasin, often with a heel protector and a grippy sole.

It’s a type of footwear that dates back to 1963 and the birth of the ‘Car Shoe’ company outside Milan, the products of which came to prominence after being seen on the hallowed feet of VIPs such as President John F Kennedy, auto tycoon Giovanni Agnelli and actress and film maker Sofia Coppola.

Back in the 1980s, Isabel Ettedgui was a designer for the historic driving kit and automotive leather manufacturer Connolly when she discovered Car Shoe during a business trip to Monaco.

‘I bought a pair and took them back to Connolly HQ with the suggestion that we should do something similar — but the people in charge said no,’ Isabel told Country Life.

A few years later, her belief in the idea was vindicated when the Tod’s driving shoe took the luxury world by storm — and she admits to having been niggled by the missed opportunity ever since.

But now that she’s in charge of Connolly (the business was purchased by her late husband, Joseph Ettedgui, 25 years ago) Ettedgui has realised her dream of re-imagining the driving shoe in the form of the new, £720 Connolly Driving Loafer.

Spanish-born fashion and accessories designer Alvaro Gonzalez developed the new Connolly shoe using glove-making techniques, creating a thin, lightly patterned rubber sole attached with cross-stitching inspired by the leather binding of a sports car and coloured it ‘British Racing Green’.

Uppers are made from soft suede and nubuck and assembled using more cross-stitching, with the glove-like construction allowing the shoe to wrap ‘with anatomic precision’ around the foot thanks to an ergonomically-shaped instep and integrated tongue. The first run quickly sold-out following the shoe’s launch in mid December, and production of a second batch is currently underway.

But what is it about such shoes — and the other bits of driving kit that Connolly specialises in — that's led to the growing popularity of the driver ‘look’? “From the Connolly point of view, driving clothes are just part of our story,’ says Ettedgui. ‘But what is interesting is the real impact that last year’s movie F1 had on fashion. Now, it’s not only “Sunday drivers” who are buying items such as our signature car vest, it’s all sorts of people.’

Other Connolly classics include a three-quarter length sheepskin car coat, leather driving helmets and goggles — and the brand’s famous black leather driving gloves, which place added emphasis on Sir Winston Churchill’s ‘V for victory’ sign by picking-out the middle and fore-finger of the right hand in yellow or red….

It does mean ‘victory’, doesn’t it?