Chat with Bradley...

Tuesday, 23rd Oct 2012

Following a phenomenal summer of successes, we caught up with Tour de France winner and multi-gold medallist Bradley Wiggins to chat heroes, sport and why he'd be more at home playing bass guitar than fronting the band.

I remember my first Fred Perry shirt. I got it in 1989 I think it was. It was the standard polo shirt in blue, I bought it myself.  At the time, in the late eighties, Fred Perry wasn’t a common thing to wear. I remember when I was about ten everything was Fila. Everyone went through this Fila thing.  It was Fila and Kickers boots. I’d just started getting into the mod look, I’d seen Quadrophenia and that’s where the Fred Perry top came from. That’s where it all started for me really. So I was kind of a bit unique at the time - Fred Perry in the late eighties was going through a bit of a dip in recognition of its heritage and what it was selling, so I guess I was a bit out there for going for a Fred Perry.

I was a bit nervous about whether people would take to the collaboration or not. But the timing I don’t think could have been better, with what happened in summer with the Tour and the Olympics. It’s been brilliant really; everything’s just come together both on and off the bike. It’s nice for me that people like Paul Weller have thanked me for the shirt, and seeing people like Steve Craddock and Andy Croft wearing theirs, it’s just really nice. And then Johnny Marr Tweeting about it and going to the store - it’s a bit like, bloody hell!

I’ve got to meet many of my heroes the past few months. And some of them being slightly in awe to meet me is very strange, and that’s through sports. I got to watch the Stone Roses, and they were brilliant and Miles Kane.  It’s bizarre but that’s what really nice about the crossover between sports and music. Everybody wants to celebrate cycling and the successes of the summer by wearing this heritage crossover piece. As I said, the timing couldn’t have been better for everybody.

For me, looking back, the mod look will always be about the Small Faces. I met Kenney Jones a while back after the Olympics, and he’s one of the original forefathers. But then after that obviously Weller and The Jam, the revival thing, and then again in modern day, him being able to be a trendsetter as well as evolving it and not being a cliché in that look; he has taken his own stamp on it. But then also for me, it’s weird for me to try and take my own style into all this. Because people look at me like that now, which is nice, it’s nice to have that. And I’ve seen a lot of stuff in the Press like ‘Mod’ on the cover of The Sun, or the Mirror and that and I guess it has given it a revival in a way really. TBC HERE