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‘I wore sarongs in the Himalayas. I looked like Lawrence of Arabia’ - Gerard Butler, 44, actor

Last year Gerard Butler made his first fashion faux pas. He turned up at the Wimbledon men’s final in a sky-blue suit and sat next to Bradley Cooper, whose suit was a similarly pale shade. Twitter nearly crashed when the pair posted a bromantic, matchy-matchy selfie. ‘We were saying, “How cool, we’re at the Wimbledon final!” ’ he says in his rugged Scottish brogue, a bit embarrassed. ‘It was so exciting, we had to document the moment.’

Butler’s gruff, unshaven look has caught the attention of copycats the world over. ‘Ido the least grooming possible. I can be ready for an event in six minutes, shower included.’ He has played roles as diverse as King Leonadis in 300 to a former NYPD detective in the romcom The Bounty Hunter, opposite Jennifer Aniston, with whom he went out after romancing her on set. He dated Leonardo DiCaprio’s ex, the Romanian model Madalina Ghenea, until earlier this year and although Butler claims he hasn’t yet met his ‘princess’, he’s recently been enjoying the Malibu sun paddleboarding with his new girlfriend, a mystery brunette.

Butler isn’t all brawn, though; he has a sensitive side and his holidays always combine adventure with spirituality: ‘I went to India and motorbiked through the Himalayas, camping on top of mountains. I wore sarongs and turbans — I looked like Lawrence of Arabia in sunglasses.’ The sarong, however, is now in the back of his wardrobe at home in LA. He’s not planning to make the same mistake as David Beckham: ‘I don’t know if it works with my beard,’ he jokes. The rugged image caught the attention of Hugo Boss and he is the new face of its fragrance Boss Bottled.

To relax, Butler takes off on his Harley-Davidson along the Pacific Coast Highway and into the Santa Monica Mountains. ‘You feel like you’re in Tuscany, lost in beautiful farmland. It’s like you move into another time,’ he says. On his bike he wears a waxed leather Belstaff jacket and heavy-duty jeans. He’s always liked the biker look: when he was growing up in Paisley in Scotland he wanted to look like Danny from Grease, so he made his mother spend hours scraping back his hair with wax. ‘I was like, “Mum, get it right,” but being a T-bird wasn’t for me.’

He is also about to usurp Russell Crowe as Hollywood’s hottest hero, playing Set, god of the desert, storms and fire, in the upcoming blockbuster Gods of Egypt, co-starring Geoffrey Rush.

Butler’s broad shoulders and rock-hard physique are the result of some serious weightlifting in preparation for the role. ‘I spent a lot of time with spears and 8ft hammers in my hand,’ he says. ‘Any time you’re holding a lethal weapon you have to look like you can do pretty much anything with it.’ While filming in Sydney he’d practise on Bondi Beach: ‘People gave me weird looks, but they’d also be like, “Dude. That’s as cool as hell.” ’ - HN

Gerard Butler is the face of Boss Bottled

'My nickname was The Duchess. Everything shone. I was such a ponce’ - Roger Moore, 86, actor

Perfectionist: Roger Moore

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I’ve always been flash,’ says Moore, the longest-serving James Bond, in his trademark husky voice. ‘As a young man I couldn’t wait to go to the Locarno Ballroom in Streatham and strut my stuff.’ Today he’s dressed in an Anthony Sinclair blazer, grey slacks and Armani sneakers. He’s staying in a Knightsbridge hotel with his fourth wife, the Scandinavian socialite Kristina ‘Kiki’ Tholstrup. Most of his stories begin or end with the glamorous women he’s kept company over the years, from Grace Kelly to Joan Collins.

Even as a pupil at Battersea Grammar School, Moore was style-conscious: ‘The uniform included a black cap with white stripes and a red falcon — I always wore it at a slight angle,’ he recalls. He bought his first suit, a grey chalk-stripe, aged 15: ‘I’d just started work as a trainee animator on Wardour Street and I’d seen a suit for £5. It was ghastly. The trousers were wide, like a sailor’s, to the tips of your shoes. My mother was horrified.’

Moore was called up to the army shortly after the Second World War and quickly rose to second lieutenant. ‘For ten bob the sergeants would press your uniform. I’d turn my trousers inside out, put soap down where the creases should be and turn them over and the crease would stay put. I couldn’t stand the flannel shirts, so I was relieved when I was commissioned and got to wear a soft silk shirt.’ He met the actress Kay Kendall in Hamburg at that time: ‘She nicknamed me The Duchess. Everything shone; my buttons and shoes were shining. I was such a ponce!’ he chuckles.

In the early 1970s, for his first Bond film, Live and Let Die, Moore was told by producer Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli to lose weight and cut his ‘cavalier-like’ hair. ‘I had to diet to the point of starvation and I exercised like mad. Big Daniel Craig-style muscles weren’t in fashion.’

His early Bond suits were designed by Conduit Street tailor Cyril Castle. Moore’s dark velvet suit and overcoat in Live and Let Die were the envy of Sammy Davis Jr and Frank Sinatra, so he passed on Castle’s number to the Rat Pack. But Moore and Sinatra rarely discussed clothes: ‘Conversation was more along the lines of “Let’s have another drink!” Frank looked good in anything; his style was always very expensive-looking.’

Moore’s favourite Bond costume was his grey silk suit in The Man with the Golden Gun, though he didn’t get to keep it. The suits he did hold on to are all at his house in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, but ‘I can’t get into them,’ he says. ‘When I finished Bond I was a 34in waist.’ - HN

Last Man Standing: Tales from Tinseltown is out now (Michael O’Mara Books, £20)

'My most cringeworthy moment? A pair of All Saints trousers with zips down the sides’ - Dermot O’Leary, 41, TV presenter

O’Leary’s most trusted critic is his wife, TV producer Dee Koppang. ‘She’s great with style tips and very honest,’ he says. They even share grooming products — ‘If push comes to shove, I’ll use her La Prairie because it’s like putting gold on your face’ — and have been known to coordinate outfits: ‘If you’re being photographed, there’s something nice about having had that conversation before.’ When they married in 2012, O’Leary’s made-to-measure Thom Sweeney suit in midnight blue offset his wife’s cream Aimee McWilliams gown. ‘It was French navy,’ he corrects me.

These days he is comfortable in head-to-toe Savile Row, but it wasn’t always this way. Growing up in Colchester in the mid-1980s, he wore ‘a lot of sports casual and ski jackets’ before graduating to Levi’s 501s and white T-shirts in homage to his musical hero Bruce Springsteen. In his university days he was part of the pre-Britpop ‘quasi-crusty era’ inspired by The Pogues and The Levellers: ‘Of all my unsuccessful experiments, The Levellers phase didn’t go too well.’

It was seeing himself on Channel 4’s T4, the Saturday morning show that nursed the nation’s hangovers in the 2000s and launched the careers of Simon Amstell, Nick Grimshaw and Alexa Chung, that made him pay more attention to his wardrobe. ‘The most cringeworthy moment was a pair of All Saints trousers with zips down the sides. You could barely get away with them if you were a girl; as a bloke, they made no sense.’

Today he is wearing an elegantly cut John Smedley cashmere crewneck and Topman chinos, and holding a navy Smythson agenda. British brands are his soft spot (he lists Oliver Spencer casualwear and JM Weston shoes as favourites) and he is a menswear ambassador for the British Fashion Council. Does he feel comfortable on the front row? ‘I make no bones about not being an expert, but men’s fashion week is a relaxed affair. Maybe because it’s in its infancy.’

Saturdays are particularly busy at the moment with The X Factor live shows kicking off last weekend; he also has an afternoon Radio 2 show and has just released a memoir charting his musical tastes, from Phil Collins in adolescence to the aforementioned Levellers at university. Although there are still a few crusty gig T-shirts in his cupboard that he swears he’ll never surrender, he can’t wait to give his new three-piece an outing on Saturday night. - DA

The Soundtrack To My Life is out now (Hodder & Stoughton, £20)