It’s been over a week since Beckxit and still we wait. Yes, we’ve had David’s aphorisms at Davos; Romeo on the Willy Chavarria catwalk; Cruz on tour; Victoria’s reunion – not to mention the various fulsome Instagram posts from both parties. But no rebuttal, no apologies, no tears. Then, the remaining Beckhams hit Paris fashion week and finally we got our first statement.
David Beckham – once the most famous footballer in the world, now its most famous parent – was in town to wingman Victoria Beckham as she became a knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. But he was also there for the optics. The remaining kids flew in. So did their partners. Some wore Victoria Beckham, others wore Loewe, everyone looked demure and sober and matchy-matchy, what a celebrity astrologist might call “a united front”.
But it was David, walking into La Réserve Paris on Monday – a hotel so fancy it has more suites than rooms – that finally shifted the discourse. He was carrying a ludicrously capacious tan canvas Hermès Haut à Courroie bag (rarer than a Birkin if you can fathom that) and wearing a Momotaro jacket made from indigo-dyed sashiko dobby fabric. Forget the five-figure handbag – sashiko is a form of decorative reinforcement, or “visible mending”, from Japan. It also translates as “little stabs”. Oh, Brooklyn, what have you done?
Even for someone as gifted at manipulating the media landscape as King Beckham, this reading is, admittedly, a bit of a reach. Was he sending a vestiary message to his estranged son or was he wearing something comfy on the Eurostar? Is David aware of sashiko – has he even read Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex? Are the family tabloid fodder or arch-manipulators of it?
“[The jacket] could be deliberate”, says Andy Milligan, brand consultant and author of Brand It Like Beckham. “He’s surrounded by the right people. And for all brands, how you appear – your costume, your demeanour, the way you comport yourself – is critically important. Whether the semiotics are overt or covert.”
David Beckham is not some courtier trapped by the rigid social mores of the palace – a silenced beauty there to be gazed at. But he also kind of is. He is part of a brand for whom intense scrutiny has never been incidental and who understand that, in this age of AI, social media and fungible truths, image is everything. Put simply, is this David’s clapback costume?
The clapback costume is Lily Allen dressing up as the French schoolgirl Madeline in reference to her song of the same name, which she wrote after discovering the identity of one of her ex-husband’s lovers. It’s Bella Hadid wearing an outrageous string bikini the same day as breaking up with her boyfriend. It’s influencer Chiara Ferragni, freshly acquitted this month after facing fraud charges linked to her 2022 charity collaboration for selling branded pandoro, attending a Schiaparelli show wearing a girlboss leather suit.
It is, of course, Diana, Princess of Wales, whose famous shirred black dress, worn to a gala in 1994 shortly after her husband confessed his affair to the BBC, coined the term “revenge dress”. “Images have always had more power than words, long before social media,” says Jacki Vause, CEO of Dimoso PR and co-presenter of the podcast The Rest Is PR. “And what is more powerful for a family we associate with fashion than what they wear? In crisis management, we always tell people to pay more attention to how they are than what they say,” she says. “[In this situation], the written word is very low down the list.” With Beckham and the like, it’s less about getting revenge and more about saying something, anything. Because where words fail, clothes do not.
For context: it’s been a week since Brooklyn Beckham, heir apparently not of the Beckham family, wrote on social media about his upbringing. “I have been silent for years and have made every attempt to keep these matters private,” he began. “I do not want to reconcile with my family. I’m not being controlled, I’m standing up for myself for the first time in my life.” He went on to describe how his mother danced “very inappropriately on me in front of everyone” at his 2022 wedding to Nicola Peltz, and trademarked his name in 2016, restricting his ability to strike deals. The rest of the family was collateral, but seems to have picked their side. It’s hard to pity a nepo baby brand – but harder to side with the people who struck the initial deal.
This is particularly true in a landscape in which crisis management is a 360-operation, says Vause, adding that the Beckhams “warmed to the idea of using digital media for branding purposes earlier than most”.
“Fashion has been used to shape the conversation around David since he was a footballer,” agrees Milligan, pointing to the hair, the sarongs, the leather jackets. “It’s all about keeping the brand in the conversation.”
Royals – Diana, Meghan, the late Queen, in her post Brexit not-EU-flag hat – are a prime example. Vause points towards Wallis Simpson, the American divorcée whose relationship with Edward VIII led to his abdication, as inspiration: “[She] always cocked a snoot at the royals by dressing in a particularly modern and classy way, without saying a word.” The fame-fashion relationship is an open secret, and this forensic approach to character management often comes down to what these people – ostensibly brands – wear. As a family who built their business on fame, “this naturally involves having fans who look at you”.
We live in a visual age, and without pictures, there is no story – before words are read, judgments are made. Clothes have not replaced the written word, but they are, like it or not, a valid communication tool for anyone in the public eye, as important as they are immediate to parse. This is particularly true for a family like the Beckhams.
While David Beckham likes fashion, he is not necessarily fashionable. (The man wears flat-caps and tweeds.) But he is a public figure, and like many public figures, he occasionally wears his heart on his sleeve. Underestimate that at your peril.
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