TOO POSH TO PARTY!
YOU might have thought that being Victoria Beckham — rich, successful and a celebrated fashion designer, not to mention the wife of one of the best-looking men on the planet and mother to four beautiful children — would be quite a laugh.
Not always, perhaps (the Beckhams are, after all, close friends with the horrid Gordon Ramsay); but all in all plenty to smile about. If these pictures are anything to go by, apparently not.
Whether it’s enjoying an afternoon of electrifying tennis at the U.S. Open or accompanying her husband to Buckingham Palace to collect an honour from the Queen — all causes for celebration that would overwhelm most of us with excitement — Mrs B exudes all the joie-de-vivre of a woman contemplating an afternoon of root canal treatment followed by an evening filling in her tax return.
Photograph after photograph, each one glummer than the last. No single word yet exists that encapsulates her relentlessly negative facial expressions. They comprise a combination of bored, irritable and indifferent, with occasional flashes of genuine fury.
Does nothing please this woman? Is there no joke, no small act of silliness, no private joy that can make her abandon her gloom? David’s first goal for LA Galaxy? Her lips barely registered an upward curl — more a snarl than a smile.
A trip to the set of Modern Family? Nope. Backstage at the end of her fashion show? Don’t be ridiculous. Hanging out with the cool people at Glastonbury? Certainly not.
As for watching Roger Federer smash his way through the first round of the U.S. Open — that just warrants the Eye Roll of Extreme Tedium. Honestly, she makes Downton’s Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, look like a giggly schoolgirl.
Who knows, maybe there’s a perfectly good reason for the lemon-sucking. Maybe David Beckham is nothing like the amiable charmer of popular folklore, but an incorrigible slob who breaks wind in bed and snores like a trooper.
Maybe she’s accidentally had too much botox in her jaw and has lost the use of her cheek muscles (it happens).
But I suspect the truth is far more simple. Despite her fame and success, Victoria has always struggled with her self-image.
When she was young she worried about her skin and her weight; in the Spice Girls she was always the one with the weakest voice. She grew up in the spotlight, but she was never truly comfortable with it. And yet her ambition drove her on.
The Victoria we see today is the product of an act of iron self- determination. She has none of the easy confidence that comes from true talent. She is instead a triumph of style over substance, and maintaining that myth depends on keeping tight control of all aspects of her appearance. That’s why she rarely smiles. Smiling requires letting yourself go, relaxing, letting the mask slip a bit.
The tragedy is that, for all her outward success, the inner Victoria still lacks the confidence to show the world her true face.
She makes Downton’s dowager look like a giggly schoolgirl