George Heaton does not consider himself‘an influencer’. But if you live and breathe training with every thread of your being – or aspire to – then he might be one of the most important figures on current fitness scene. This is how to make clothes and influence people
The label ‘influencer’ is thrown around all too casually these days. But to be someone of real influence is a different thing. George Heaton, who co-founded the UK fashion powerhouse Represent with his brother Michael, is certainly the latter. After discovering a passion for running and fitness during the lockdowns of 2020, and disaffected with homogenised mainstream gym wear, he created a Represent training range that reflected the brand’s aesthetic while speaking to his everyday, always-on attitude. He called it 247 and it’s rapidly become the training kit to wear if you’re as serious about your fitness as you are about looking cool. He spoke to Men’s Health’s Andrew Tracey in the ‘little’ office gym at Represent HQ in Bolton. Turns out that the first person George made a positive influence upon is himself.
Men’s Health: How are you feeling about the photo shoot today?
George Heaton: Thankful, really. I appreciate the opportunity to get to do this. I’ve picked up the magazine ever since I knew what lifting weights was. So to see myself on that cover... I would see those guys and think, ‘Well, I’ll never look like that.’ To put myself in that place is kind of unbelievable. MH: Have you been into fitness all your life? What’s your training background?
GH: I didn’t have one up until my mid-twenties. I was 26 when I got into fitness properly. Before then, I’d go and lift weights in the gym like everyone would. I had no clue what I was doing,
so I’d just go and do some arms on a Monday, legs on a Wednesday, then maybe some back over the weekend. I didn’t understand my macros or my nutrition, so I never looked or felt that good. I gained some size under a lot of fat, which I suppose created a good base that I didn’t realise I had, at least.
And then in 2018, 2019, I really got into running and I started a thing called 75
Hard, which is a discipline programme that has two workouts a day. I was hitting my cardio, I was lifting weights and I noticed my body adapt. When you see a little bit of a change for the better, you kind of get addicted to it.
I started really delving into the types of fitness t
