faith in the future

“I must have the easiest f***ing rider of all time,” he says. “As long as I’ve got my vodka Red Bulls and a pack of ciggies, I’m alright.”

While Tomlinson appears somewhat erratic, his hand constantly gripped to one of the green bottles, he is effusively energetic with a singing Northern twang, keen smile and friendly nature. At 5ft 7in he is not overbearing in stature, and kindly repeats his vodka is for sharing.

The atmosphere is hectic upstairs, however. After five years in the most famous band in the world, which finally split in 2015, I suggest he must be used to the fans. “No, no,” he corrects me. “It’s a funny relationship ’cause I feel like I get on really well with them. It’s really, really nice to see them,” he says, in the most genuine tone he can muster. “It’s not something I’ve ever really stared in the face of, though. The longer you think about shit like that, it just doesn’t make any sense anyway.”

It has been a horrific few months for Tomlinson, by any standard. His band-member Liam Payne died after falling from the third-floor balcony of a hotel in Buenos Aires in October, and media scrutiny around the four surviving One Direction members — himself, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik and Niall Horan — has massively intensified.

I am told sternly before we sit down to, please, forgo any questions on the topic. “The Sun has been running a story that the boys are going to reunite at the Brits for Liam,” a PR manager tells me. “Louis just despairs. He could never get up there and sing as part of the band after what has happened.” One Direction did not perform during the awards, which took place the night after our interview.

Instead, in the wake of Payne’s death, Tomlinson took to Instagram, where he now has 20 million followers, to share his own personal message to his “brother”. “I’m so grateful that we got even closer since the band, speaking on the phone for hours, reminiscing about all the thousands of amazing memories we had together is a luxury I thought I’d have with you for life,” he wrote. “I wish I got a chance to say goodbye and tell you one more time how much I loved you.”

Tomlinson is no stranger to grief. His mother, Johannah Poulston, a midwife and TV assistant, died in 2016 at 43 after battling leukaemia, and his sister, Félicité, died from an accidental overdose in 2019 aged 18.

Eager not to be sidetracked, he launches, with fervour, into discussion about his fourth 28 collection, named so after his favourite number, which is also tattooed on his left-hand fingers. “It’s been really fun for me to apply the creative side of my brain somewhere else. When you’re songwriting — and at the moment I’m writing a new record — it is all encompassing. It’s nice to have a break from those kinds of creative ideas,” he says.

He founded the brand in August 2023 when he realised the clothes he loved growing up in Doncaster had become trendy. “Forty per cent of my wardrobe is sports-inspired somehow. I was doing that for years as a chavvy, tucking my socks in when I was a young lad before it was cool, and now you see everyone in the sports garb,” he says. “There’s a very, very chavvy aesthetic in Doncaster, at least when I was growing up. That’s exactly who I am and the kind of stuff that I like.”

Doesn’t he mind the term chavvy? “I’ve always embraced it,” he says. “Look, I am a f***ing chav, so I have to embrace it. I have to try and make it cool in my own head.”

Really? “I don’t think it’s a bad word, not to me. To me it’s about culture. It might mean other things to other people. It’s also very much how you grow up in a place like Doncaster. You can’t escape the chav in Donny, so you’ve got to become it.”

Tomlinson was born in Doncaster in 1991 to Poulston and Troy Austin, an alcoholic who left when he was a child and whom Tomlinson remains estranged from. He subsequently took his then-stepfather Mark Tomlinson’s surname, who is now a micro-celebrity in his own right boasting 274k Instagram followers.

Everything changed for him in 2010, aged 18, when he stepped out, squirming with nerves, in front of Simon Cowell and the rest of The X Factor judges to sing Scouting for Girls’ Elvis Ain’t Dead followed by Plain White T’s Hey There Delilah.

The clothes he wore are burnt into memory. “Like many of us, I’ve had some real f***ing fashion disasters for sure. I kid you not, the outfit I went to my first audition in, I will have been out in Doncaster in Silver Street, where all the clubs are, 20 times. That was my outfit: not quite baby blue, but a blue shirt with a black skinny tie and a cardigan,” he says. “These days that seems so f***ing like smart, but skinny ties were the vibe then.”

He was later moulded into the boy band member executives required. “When I was in One Direction we all had to have our certain specific look. Even if I tucked my socks in, they would say: ‘Let me tell you, take them straight out,’” he recalls. “There was an element of kind of dumbing that down.”

It is part of why he is enjoying going back to his roots with his brand, first designing football shirts and tracksuits but for the latest range introducing a denim co-ord set and knitwear. “There is an element of going back to all those ideas and really embracing my youth and my culture.” As for who he wants to see in his latest looks: “I feel like Jack O’Connell, from Skins, sums it up pretty well.” A$AP Rocky is his style pin-up (“every time you see him, he’s looking on point”), and what about Beyoncé in the denim? “Yes! That would be pretty cool — and also be great for sales.”

Tomlinson doesn’t overthink the creative process. “It’s not something that I’m spending 12 hours a day thinking about, I’m led by feel,” he explains. “That’s the way I treat my songwriting, too. You know, I’m not some musical genius.” While not designing, you will usually find him playing packed-out arenas in far-flung destinations worldwide. During his Faith in the Future World Tour, which ran May 26, 2023 to June 6, 2024, he played a total of 98 shows starting in Uncasville, Connecticut, and concluding in Mexico’s Guadalajara.

Last Sunday, in neon tracksuit bottoms and white vest, he was in Mumbai headlining Lollapalooza. “I always want to be ultimately relaxed, but my stylist is trying to get a little bit of sophistication out of me, which is needed,” he says.

He professes to love being on tour, which sets him apart from some of his contemporaries who deem it a gruelling, yet lucrative, part of the job. Why? “It’s a far cry from the real world.” He doesn’t bother trying to pull off the harrowing line as a joke.

“It’s like you might have speculated as a 16-year-old lad of what it is to tour — exciting, different places every day,” he continues. “You’re surrounded by so many different cultures, conversations with different people. As a creative — if I can call myself that — it’s really good to see the world.”

Trips back home to Doncaster are scheduled as often as he can, “realistically two or three times a year, but always for about three weeks over Christmas.” He is otherwise based in a grand, four-storey, six-bed Victorian mansion in Barnet, north London, which he bought in 2012.

“London is so vast, it just feels like a melting pot. There’s so many different creative ideas flying around,” he says. When I push him on his favourite places to hang out here, however, he freezes. “To be honest, the irony of that is that I was thinking about moving recently. I’ve got no idea where to move to. I like London, but I wouldn’t say I’d be able to put my finger on what: I really love it here, I really love it there — I don’t really know.” No other boroughs in the capital have caught his eye. “The place that I live now I’ve lived in for ages, ever since I was in the band. I haven’t really got any true perspective of London. But there’s time for that.”

Ultimately, he claims to find comfort on the stage. “There is a lot of mystique in the job of a singer,” he says. “If you do this, it might mean that.” Playing a gig is simple. “I just love how literal the whole thing is. I have people that are willing to pay to come and see me and I feel their reaction every night,” he says.

“I feel really good about that.” This time, I think he means it.