Gok Wan wins Icon Award at the 2025 Attitude Awards: Fashion, music and charity
Stylist, TV presenter, radio broadcaster and DJ the multi-talented Gok Wan is a worthy winner of the Icon Award at the 2025 Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards
For many, Gok Wan is known for introducing the chunky belt into our wardrobes and celebrating self-expression in ways that we’d never seen before on our TV screens. But for the LGBTQ+ community, he was more: as one of the first publicly gay Chinese men they had seen beamed into their living rooms, he offered much-needed representation for swathes of people.
As we celebrate the incomparable MBE with an Icon Award at the Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards, powered by Jaguar, we take a look back at some of his trailblazing achievements.
Gok Wan made his TV debut in 2006
In 2006, Wan made his TV debut as the presenter and stylist of Channel 4’s How To Look Good Naked. On it, he helped women overcome insecurities about their bodies and expand their sense of style. With a refreshing take on body positivity, it was an antidote to the misogynistic and cosmetic surgery-led programming of the time, celebrating women in ways that we’d never seen before and catapulting Wan into the spotlight.
Wan’s work in fashion has continued. Earlier this year, as brand ambassador for JD Williams, he released a new clothing collection.
He has also explored new creative paths outside fashion. Having grown up in a family that ran a Chinese restaurant, he accumulated a wealth of cooking knowledge that he unexpectedly took into his professional life in 2012 with TV show Gok Cooks Chinese. “The public took to me cooking as easily as me showing a woman what dress to wear,” Wan shared in an interview in 2018. He went on to release two cookbooks, Gok Cooks Chinese in 2012 and Gok’s Wok in 2013.
Wan’s musical career has stretched from Glastonbury, Mighty Hoopla to Ministry of Sound
During the Covid-19 pandemic, he added DJ’ing to his roster of talents. After live-streaming his Isolation Nation shows, with no expectation other than connecting with folk, it took off. Fast-forward to five years later, and he’s played Glastonbury, Mighty Hoopla, Ministry of Sound and Pride events up and down the country.
In 2021, his services to fashion and social awareness were rewarded with an MBE in the New Year Honours list. This not only celebrated his creative impact, but it honoured his work on campaigns with LGBTQ+ charity All Out, as well as the work he has done to raise money for organisations such as Stonewall.
More widely, he has raised life-saving funds for Macmillan Cancer Support after the passing of his close friend Allison Gordon Parry to cancer in 2024. He partnered with House Gospel Choir to release the single Deeper Love in support of the charity.
His impact on the LGBTQ+ community is undeniable, uniting all walks of life through fashion, music and food. Now that’s iconic.
This is an excerpt from a feature appearing in the 2025 Attitude Awards issue. To see the full feature, order your copy of the Attitude Awards 2025 issue now or read it alongside 15 years of back issues on the free Attitude app.