How did a jeans ad become the most famous boxer ad ever? Robert Elms, style journalist, author and broadcaster, looks back at that iconic launderette moment.
Before the boy in the launderette nobody wore boxers. Back in the 1980s, baggy Y-fronts and skimpy briefs, probably in inflammable manmade fibres, were the male underwear order of the day. Then one day this fabulous ad appeared on our TVs and changed all that.
Levi’s were famous for making iconic commercials, but the one which really captured the public imagination, when it appeared back in 1985, not only gave a great boost to classic denim but also changed forever what guys wore beneath their jeans. The scenario was simple: a great looking young male model with a brooding early Elvis/James Dean style wanders into a 50s washateria and then proceeds to sensually but casually disrobe down to his underwear, to the dismay of some and the excitement of others, before washing his new Levi’s and watching them spin round in just his shorts.
Nick Kamen was the model, a hip face of the time, and white cotton Sunspel boxers were the inspired choice of underpants, appearing both timelessly cool and crisply modern. Almost overnight men who would once have seen boxer shorts as stuffily old fashioned were clamouring to look like Nick Kamen and buying boxers in their droves. And they have been ever since. And ever since, white cotton Sunspel has been the boxer choice of those in the know.
– Robert Elms