It was a busy Thursday in Berlin for David Beckham.
He was in the German capital to officially launch the third edition of Boss by Beckham, his ongoing collaboration with Hugo Boss. The capsule collection is already available in stores but with each edition, the brand puts on a special event to celebrate it, explained Julia Langenhan, vice president of marketing at Hugo Boss.
For the first two capsules, events took place in New York and Shanghai and Langenhan explained why Berlin was chosen for this third release: “It’s important we don’t forget where we are from,” she said.
Beckham’s first stop was at Hugo Boss’ two-story flagship on Kurfürstendamm, a shopping boulevard that’s home to many European marquee brands.
Representatives from about 20 media outlets around Europe had been invited to the store, with many flying in from other European countries. From around 5 p.m., ordinary shoppers, hoping for a glimpse of Beckham or just to browse the racks, were turned away by security guards at the door. Well-heeled VIP clients and customers were allowed in before the media arrived, and another batch would arrive later too. Waiters served cocktails and tiny snacks on silver trays.
Hugo Boss has taken over the KaDeWe department store’s large streetside windows for three weeks.
“We wanted to have an exclusive space for David,” Langenhan told WWD. “For us, it’s important we shine a light on the work he has done on the collection. He is so involved with every single detail and we wanted to create a space for him where people can appreciate that.”
That’s the message the brand was focused on and, during a panel talk on the upper level of the boutique, Beckham was asked pre-scripted questions about this.
“I think everything I do and that I am part of, I always try to be involved from the moment it starts, to the moment it finishes,” Beckham told assembled media. “It’s important for me to look at every single detail … and the collection has to be authentic, it has to be authentically me.”
According to Beckham, the most important qualities of the clothing on offer were versatility, simplicity and longevity. The clothes had to be able to travel around the world and through different seasons and trends, he explained.
“Simplicity is the elegance part,” he noted. “I know I’ve pushed the [fashion] boundaries over the years,” he recounted, laughing, and referred to some of his past hair styles. “I didn’t always get it right. But these are staples, things that everybody needs in their wardrobe.”
Double-breasted jackets are becoming something of a trademark of Boss by Beckham and, on Thursday evening, the football legend was wearing one in a gray wool-silk and linen blend, together with another popular item from the capsule collection, loose cotton dress pants.
Beckham said he could trace his desire for formal wear back to being a 9-year-old in London’s East End, watching his grandfather don three-piece suits almost daily. But that’s not how we live today, he said — nobody saves a double-breasted jacket for a special occasion anymore.
At the Hugo Boss store, Beckham posed for picture with journalists.
For example, another double-breasted jacket in the Boss by Beckham collection comes in cream because, Beckham said, he wore something similarly comfortable to Wimbledon last year.
“And I remember putting another suit on once, and I said I want to feel like this every time I put on a suit,” he continued. The suit was silk cashmere and it’s this sort of feeling that has since made him a bit of a “fabric nerd,” Beckham confessed.
That’s why a lot of work has gone into making even the collection’s simplest T-shirts comfortable, he boasted.
After the panel ended, star-struck invitees lined up to pose for a picture with Beckham. The down-to-earth icon greeted them all with a smile and a handshake.
But his day of promotional activities in Berlin wasn’t over yet.
Next stop for the father-of-four was not far down the road, at a 439-square-foot Hugo Boss pop-up inside the city’s KaDeWe department store, which will be open until April 11.
