DAVID BECKHAM
June 2014. Middle Saturday of Wimbledon. In the Royal Box, a series of guest personalities from the world of sport are being introduced to the crowd. Cricketers, rugby players, boxers and more elicit polite applause as their names are read out. The man announced at the end, however, receives a resounding cheer that drowns out the words of MC Sue Barker.
David Beckham stands and acknowledges the adoration. He looks utterly impeccable in a cream Prince of Wales check blazer, pink shirt and handkerchief and club tie. Totally at ease in his surroundings, it is almost as if he’s a royal himself. It’s a year since he retired from playing and his status as a national hero and Godfather of football fashion is undisputed. It’s hard to imagine things were ever different.
I last wrote about Beckham’s style in the summer of 1998, for the official Manchester United magazine. It was a toxic time for him, following his infamous World Cup red card. As England lost, the tabloids had naturally singled out Beckham as culpable. The Mirror headline screamed, “Ten Heroic Lions, One Stupid Boy”. The 23-year-old’s world was caving in.
United were circling the wagons. On the back of a season where they had lost out to a Double-winning Arsenal team, they knew the circus that would accompany Beckham’s club return was unwelcome. Alex Ferguson told him to come back to Manchester, to his “family”. United fans, who have never been true Anglophiles, rallied behind him. The official magazine wanted to back him strongly.
United asked me to write a piece about footballers and fashion through the ages. Beckham was to feature – and could I make it positive, please? I was sent some images as inspiration. One had made headlines before the World Cup: Beckham walking down the street in what looked suspiciously like a skirt. In truth, it was a sarong by Jean-paul Gaultier that he’d wrapped around his trousers, but that hardly mattered to any paper running the snap – come on, lads, it’s a skirt, isn’t it?
Unfortunately for Beckham, it created the impression of a ‘look at me’ individual, with a pop-star partner too famous by half. He was not archetypal Three Lions material. Once he’d single-handedly ‘cost us the World Cup’, that paparazzi shot would come back to haunt him. Outside an East End pub, a dummy was hanged by its neck – wearing an England No.7 shirt and a sarong. The message was clear.
Twelve months later, Manchester United won the Treble. Two years after that, Beckham became an England legend, with his last-gasp free-kick against Greece taking his country to the World Cup finals. Today he is feted as one of the game’s greats, loved by all. It’s been an amazing turnaround. Style-wise, he is held up as an icon: brands continuously seek his endorsement and men’s magazines eagerly watch for his next fashion move. It’s a far cry from 1998, and a journey worthy of reflection.
When Beckham entered United’s first team in 1995, he wasn’t seen as the brightest of the latest crop of prospects; nor was his face likely to feature heavily on teenage girls’ bedroom walls. United had two young, flying wingers already, who were creating a storm in the nightclubs of Manchester: Ryan Giggs and Lee Sharpe. Giggs in particular, with his dark good looks and free-flowing style of play, was being compared to George Best, the original football style icon. Beckham? Well, we didn’t really know what was special about him at all.
David’s breakthrough into the public domain came as three events converged: his part in United’s Double in 1995-96; the goal from his own half against Wimbledon on the following season’s opening day; and the start of his relationship with Victoria Adams, AKA Posh Spice. A young, English, Manchester United player aligning with a pop star was tabloid gold. It propelled him into the nation’s psyche.
If you look at his engagement pictures (see the previous page), Beckham looks like any other young man cajoled into having a snap taken with his fiancée as she waves her diamond about excitedly. He’s wearing jeans, Timberland boots and a plain duffle coat – not exactly a trailblazing style. But fast-forward to the wedding 18 months later and it’s as if he has been re-invented. He is sat on a throne, wearing a purple satin suit with matching shirt and blond highlights. All down to Victoria? Possibly, but I think not entirely.
Beckham has always been interested in fashion. He has often talked of being a page boy, aged 6, and insisting on picking his outfit – a maroon set of knickerbocker pants with a frilly shirt. Clearly he’s never been concerned what other people think, as long as he feels that he looks good. From that purple wedding ensemble through the 2000s, Beckham’s style entered another stratosphere, putting him on as many front pages as back pages. Ultimately it would prove too much for Alex Ferguson, who called time on Beckham’s United career in 2003, but that didn’t dampen his stardom. He simply went from strength to strength.
This is a man whose life you can measure not just in football medals, but in haircuts. We’ve had everything from cornrows to skinheads. He’s been a surfer, a Teddy Boy and even Travis Bickle. Each time, he has stayed a step ahead, with the confidence to change just as a million young men in suburban nightclubs catch up with him. If you had a penny for every time a barber in this country has been asked to copy the Beckham barnet, you’d be a millionaire.
And while every footballer from the Conference to the Champions League is now head-to-toe in tattoos, it was undoubtedly Beckham who started the trend. His ink even propelled his personal artist, Louis Molloy, to his own reality TV show. Twenty years ago, it was unthinkable that a luxury watch brand might showcase their product on a tattooed arm – but when the arm belongs to Beckham, Tudor will pay handsomely for it.
Monogrammed boots, Louis washbags, bespoke luxury vehicles – everything that is ubiquitous for the modern footballer can be traced back to Beckham in the first instance. Yet, for all the vast changes to his wardrobe and grooming regime over the years, it’s now that he’s settled into football retirement and fatherhood that he seems most comfortable.
Nicely juxtaposing a day look that is cool and casual with a super-sharp, tailored line in event wear, Beckham today presents the perfect image of a 44-year-old man who is completely at ease in his own skin. With endless awards, winner’s medals and an OBE, he has absolutely nothing to prove. The go-to guy for high-class brands seeking cachet for their wares, he also has his own clothing brand and line in male grooming. His Instagram is a window into a life most would love to lead, while still feeling grounded: memories of his youth and family experiences sit comfortably alongside the all-important endorsements. Writing 20 years ago, I would never have envisaged Beckham as he is now. Yet the adversity that he experienced then and since, the pop star he married and the PR machine that came with her, all combined to make a superstar. Ultimately, though, where he is today is all down to himself. That single-mindedness and sense of style took him from the effigy hanging from a pub sign to a global phenomenon.
STYLE-WISE, HE’S An ICON: BRANDS SEEK HIS ENDORSEMENT AND MEN’S MAGS EYE HIS NEXT FASHION MOVE