As he prepares to host The Game of Wool, the Olympian diver talks about trying to get murdered faithfuls resurrected on Traitors – and the time he knitted himself a woollen chandelier
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n The Game of Wool, Channel 4’s quest to find Britain’s best knitter, you can’t take your eyes off Tom Daley’s outfits. One of his goals for the series, he says, is that “what I was wearing would get progressively more interesting”, which is ridiculous because in the very first episode he’s wearing a vivid, asymmetrical shawl that in some places reaches the floor, and he looks like a wizard who might seem chaotic but is actually very powerful.
“Sheila [Greenwell, one of two judges, along with Di Gilpin] made that for La Fetiche,” he says, referring to the avant garde house of knitwear. “Later on I wear some stuff by Hope Macaulay, a Northern Irish textiles designer, then Boy Kloves, right out of Central Saint Martins, then towards the end, two archival Stella McCartney looks.”
It’s not his first modelling rodeo, because who could forget the Gillette campaign last year, which is where many of us first learned the phrase “thirst trap”? But no question, it’s novel to see him wearing so many clothes. He loves being a “blank canvas”, but isn’t considering a second act as a model: “I think I’ve missed the boat – I’m 31.” Elite athletes have bizarre, truncated careers, even the ones who aren’t divers (yes, that is a “trunks” joke, thank you for noticing). But Daley is ready for his next act.
