29 Unforgettable Outfits From David Beckham’s Early Days Of Fame

The term “metrosexual” is not the aphrodisiac it once was. When I, for example, stumble upon an old GQ article with that cursed portmanteau in the headline, I am reminded of secondary school music teachers, or the Ted Baker gift sets that Boots sells at Christmas. And yet, there was a time when David Beckham’s erotic largesse was bound up in that precise word. Once described as the “biggest metrosexual in Britain” (which, in 2025, somehow sounds like a jibe), “Becks” was, throughout the ’90s and ’00s, considered a spokesman for a new kind of heterosexual man: one who put effort into the way he looked, including regular haircuts and clipped nails.

Just as well known for his caramel highlights, holiday sarongs and oiled-up appearances in Emporio Armani campaigns as he was for his athletic prowess on the football pitch, through Beckham, the tough and affectless stereotype of a Premiership footballer began to feel all the more irrelevant. Here was a softly spoken lad who fronted gay men’s magazines and dressed in coordinated leathers with his girlfriend Posh Spice, which (gasp!) bolstered rather than broke down his sexual magnetism. He wore rhinestoned tracksuits, vinyl trench coats, itty-bitty vests and decorated his hairless chest with a tangle of pale-pink rosary beads. “

In 2025, Beckham’s style isn’t quite as mercurial as it once was, built, it seems, on the same sprezzatura that first made the Sartorialist an icon for the middle-aged. “I have a very particular aesthetic these days,” he told GQ, not long after stripping down to his Y-fronts for Boss. “It’s all very classic styles and timeless looks, and understated more than anything else. I think gone are the days where I’d be too daring – I’ll leave that to my kids, they’re always referencing my looks from the ’90s.” But the desire to look good feels just as important as it ever did. In Beckham’s 2023 Netflix documentary, the sportsman is seen plotting his outfits up to a week in advance. “I’m always planning,” he said. “I know exactly what I’m wearing every single day, and it very rarely changes.”

On his 50th birthday, we roll back the clock on some of David Beckham’s most memorable outfits from his early days of fame – from the open-collared suits and religious beads, to the bedazzled tracksuits and questionable durags, to the wipe-clean trench coats and leather Gucci suit (worn, notably, to a Versace event).