David Gandy signed with Select in London in 2001 and spent five years inside an industry casting androgynous models with bodies skinny enough for womenswear samples. Dolce & Gabbana broke the pattern in 2006, putting him in his first runway show that year.

The Light Blue fragrance campaign shot by Mario Testino in Capri followed in 2007, with David in a white swimsuit beside Marija Vujović, and the 50-foot Times Square billboard turned him into the face of a different idea of what a male model could look like.

David returned for additional Light Blue campaigns, with Anna Jagodzinska in 2010 and Bianca Balti between 2013 and 2023.

The Dolce & Gabbana partnership included ready-to-wear campaigns and runway seasons, culminating in a 280-page photographic book of the collaboration, published in 2011.

Expanding his profile outside Italian fashion, David became a British Fashion Council ambassador and fronted Marks & Spencer menswear for six years, turning a body that had been wrong for fashion in 2001 into one of the most recognized faces in British style.

In 2021, he founded David Gandy Wellwear, a loungewear and pajama label that has since expanded into underwear and returned to M&S in 2026 as a third-party brand. The man who became famous in a swimsuit now sells British men the pajamas to sleep in.