As Formula One’s Audience Grows Younger, Broader, And More Culturally Engaged, Fashion And Luxury Brands Are Tapping Into Its Potent Mix Of Fandom, Storytelling, Global Reach, And Experience
By Dao Tran
For the launch of their Racing Edition capsule, I was invited by ic! berlin, the German eyewear brand and official eyewear partner of the Audi Revolut Formula 1 Team, for an exhilarating Audi Driving Experience in Neuburg and an exclusive trackside experience at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza. It was the hottest ticket – the trip illustrated why Formula 1 is tearing it up and fashion is racing to get in on the action.
Formula 1’s New Audience
Formula 1 has undergone a remarkable transformation since Liberty Media acquired the sport in 2017. Two years later, Netflix series Formula 1: Drive to Survive helped bring F1 to a broader, younger mainstream audience. Drivers became personalities, rivalries became storylines, and the paddock became a world audiences could enter emotionally.
F1 Academy has extended that reach. Launched in 2023, the all-female racing series provides a development pathway for young women while adding another set of characters and stories to become invested in. Among respondents to Formula 1’s 2025 Global Fan Survey, 42 percent of women and 37 percent of Gen Z followed F1 Academy.
The incredible numbers explain why brands are paying attention. Formula 1’s global fanbase reached 827 million in 2025, up 63 percent from 2018. 43 percent are under 35 and 42 percent are women.
And the audience isn’t merely watching. Ninety percent of respondents to the survey described themselves as emotionally invested in race outcomes; one in three said an association with F1 made them more likely to buy from a partner brand, rising to 40 percent among Gen Z.
That is a compelling proposition for fashion.
Why Sport, Why Now?
Formula 1 offers something fashion desperately wants: authentic emotional engagement and community.
People may wear brands they don’t care about. They support their team.
They may admire a designer. They crush on the drivers. Following in the footsteps of Lewis Hamilton, a new generation of international stars is exceptionally visible and increasingly fashion-aware, occupying an unusual space somewhere between athlete, celebrity and contemporary style figure. Their paddock arrivals have become fashion moments, with some partners bringing sizeable fashion and social media followings of their own.
And unlike the increasingly fleeting attention cycle surrounding fashion collections, Formula 1 produces an unfolding narrative across entire seasons and years that keep us hooked: victories and defeats, competition and camaraderie, and a carousel of drivers and team principals switching teams like creative directors switch houses.
Luxury has clearly noticed. LVMH began a ten-year global partnership with Formula 1 in 2025, with Louis Vuitton producing bespoke trophy trunks, TAG Heuer keeping official time, and Moët & Chandon being sprayed on the podium. Kering also got its horse in the game, with Gucci becoming title partner of Alpine in 2027 under the new name Gucci Racing Alpine Formula One Team. It will be interesting to see the worldbuilding and storytelling that emerges: Demna has a knack for producing cultural moments, and Gucci Racing is conceived as a business and experiential platform at the intersection of luxury and sport rather than simply a sponsorship.
The opportunity stretches well beyond Formula 1. Fashion and luxury are increasingly embedding themselves into the Olympics, World Cup, tennis and other sports because these events deliver something increasingly difficult to manufacture: unifying around a common passion. Sport has become one of the last places where enormous global audiences still gather around the same event at the same moment – locked in to its outcome. In an increasingly fractured and fractious world, it is one of the few arenas for unity and community.
Formula 1 is especially seductive because its values and demographics already overlap with luxury’s – they are both expensive, exclusive, and excellent – while its traveling calendar offers a ready-made global activation platform. The 2026 championship encompasses 24 races across five continents. America alone demonstrates the scale of the opportunity. With the addition of Miami and Las Vegas to the schedule, average US television audiences have risen from roughly 538,000 per race in 2017 to a record 1.3 million in 2025, and the US fanbase totaling 52 million. With Cadillac joining the grid in 2026, expect those numbers to keep rising.
Enter ic! berlin and the Audi Revolut Formula 1 Team
Both ic! berlin and Audi are grounded in German engineering, technological innovation, extreme performance, and a design philosophy in which form follows function. Founded in Berlin in 1996, ic! berlin built its reputation around ultra-light stainless-steel frames and its patented screwless hinge; Audi debuted in Formula 1 this year after more than a century of motorsport achievement, from rallying and Le Mans to DTM, Formula E and Dakar. They both use highly technical materials such as carbon fiber, and strive for ultra-precision and durability in construction. ic! berlin encapsulates the connection concisely in its new campaign starring Audi Revolut F1 drivers Nico Hülkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto: “From 0.5 mm to 300 km/h.”
Further, all partnership is built on relationship. When ic! berlin became part of Marcolin Group in November 2023, it gained the access and support of an international eyewear group with extensive luxury expertise and distribution. Marcolin had already been involved with F1, with WEB Eyewear as the official eyewear partner of the Sauber-run Alfa Romeo F1 Team in 2022. When Sauber transitioned into the Audi works team, ic! berlin became the obvious choice because of the good fit and their alignment in approach, style, and aspiration.
The Racing Edition draws on the team’s visual language and features racing-inspired details as well as a sleeve depicting the circuit at Monza, Austin, Singapore or Las Vegas. I wore a pair from the capsule and two other models throughout the trip, and can attest that they are so lightweight and comfortable you forget you have them on, and statement enough to go with my fits.
The Race Is On
At Audi’s Driving Experience in Neuburg, getting behind the wheel offered a hands-on appreciation for the grueling physical challenges of an F1 driver and their incredible mastery of machine, speed and reaction time. It was the most visceral way to get us pumped up for Monza.
Drinks and dinner at the Audi Motorhome on the eve of Practice Day was the loveliest calm before the storm, with a view of the sunset over the track from the balcony and a gourmet dinner from the impressive chefs who feed the whole team and all their guests.
Because Monza is a full-on assault on the senses that just gets your adrenaline pumping. The Paddock Club is one big exclusive party, with each team’s hospitality directly above their garage, overlooking the pit lane and starting grid. The coolest thing was listening in to the team radio and visiting the garage, getting insight behind the scenes into the highly precise and perfectly synchronized work of the engineers and mechanics, where every millisecond makes a difference between winning and losing.
Full disclosure: I love watching the Grands Prix with my friend mansplaining the finer points, and have binged Drive to Survive, so you don’t need to convert me. But still, it’s an easy sell. Who wouldn’t catch F1 fever when you hear the engines tearing down the straights, feel the twists and turns in your gut, and clench with every overtake? Motorsport is extraordinarily visceral, and speed is one of our primal natural highs. Add the energy of hundreds of thousands of spectators across a Grand Prix weekend and the excitement is inescapable. For brands, that collective emotional engagement is gold.
Monza illustrated that a Formula 1 weekend isn’t simply a sporting event. It is simultaneously entertainment, travel, hospitality, celebrity, content and community. For brands, that creates opportunities at different levels and tiers: product collaborations and brand activations, pop-ups and viewing parties, compelling storytelling and social content, exclusive paddock access, client entertainment, and elaborate hospitality experiences. This can be repeated around the world, as ic! berlin is planning to do in Singapore and Austin, giving the brand access to those global audiences.
For an industry that is sometimes challenged with translating eyeballs into hearts, Formula 1 offers something fashion is chasing: true passion and community that keeps growing. Partnership with it can prove to be a winning formula. Watch this space.
