MEN'S FASHION Soccer player gets a kick out of stylish clothes

The athlete obviously enjoys looking good and doesn't mind admitting it takes effort to do so.
WASHINGTON POST
It's no exaggeration to say that the men's fashion industry dreams about fellows like British soccer player David Beckham. He is the rare male fashion aficionado who has no qualms about embracing runway style. He is a Dolce & amp; Gabbana man, an athlete who can wear pastel suits and not feel the need to accessorize them with a hyper-masculine, hip-hop swagger. He also is utterly comfortable looking as though he has put considerable time, thought and effort into the process of getting dressed.
After transferring his allegiance from the Manchester United soccer team to Real Madrid for about $40 million, Beckham recently posed for photographs holding his new soccer jersey -- No. 23. He was wearing a sky-blue suit and a white shirt deftly unbuttoned to show the planes and angles of his chest. He was quite a striking sight, a fact not lost on anyone, least of all the man himself.
The midfielder has been photographed in artfully ripped jeans and keen-toed leather boots, an iridescent black blazer, a creamy white suit, cornrows, a modified Mohawk and a Rasta hat. Beckham is unusual not only because of his skill with the ball but because he has the interest, the willingness and the cash to wear the adventurous fashion that designers send down the catwalk.
Hip to high style
Beckham's high style is different from that of most well-to-do clotheshorse athletes who love custom-made suits in bold colors and distracting jewelry that twinkles with diamonds. His clothes are more about proclaiming hipness than announcing wealth or machismo. Beckham's use of fashion communicates an inflated degree of cool, confidence and sex appeal. He dresses in a way that speaks to a particular segment of the style-conscious male population -- those who can distinguish D Squared from Dolce & amp; Gabbana, who know the difference between Versace and Versus and who can speak knowledgeably about moisturizers, exfoliants and antioxidants.
For the menswear industry, Beckham is the embodiment of everything that designers have been preaching. Here is an athlete, husband, pinup boy who understands there is nothing particularly effeminate about indulging in fashion. Beckham's athleticism functions as a placard announcing that fashion -- the kind that shifts from one season to the next -- is macho. A man's suit does not have to be gray, black or navy. A man's interest in fashion does not have to be limited to subtle details such as the number of buttons on his jacket, the spread of his collar or his choice in cuff links. Men's fashion can be flamboyant, teasing, coy, shocking, sexy, and remain masculine.
Self-expression
Historically, this jubilant embrace of fashion was limited to gay men, African-American and Latino men, and the occasional dandy. But like the 28-year-old Beckham, younger men who were weaned on square-toed loafers, earrings and MTV are more amenable to fashion. Of course, it would be helpful to the fashion industry if Beckham's renown were greater in the United States. It is among the most important fashion markets, but soccer and its stars don't get the acclaim here that they receive elsewhere. Beckham's June visit to the States with his wife, Victoria, formerly known as Posh Spice, barely caused a stir.
Still, Beckham is an example of how men can find the same satisfying sense of self-expression through clothes that women have long known was possible. The one true wrinkle in Beckham's style is that he has not yet perfected the appearance of effortlessness. He does not have the nonchalance of a female fashion fiend who can step out of a limousine done up in $20,000 worth of stylist-selected designer clothes and dismiss compliments with a shrug that suggests: Oh, this is just something I threw on.
Beckham remains outwardly enamored of his own style. Instead of making fashion look easy, he demonstrates how it can be a time-consuming project in which one must take care that a jacket is always buttoned just so, or the pinstripe on a pair of track pants coordinates with one's hat. There's a tendency to notice the clothes before one notices the man.
In Beckham, menswear has a strong advocate for the energy and pleasure to be found in fashion. But he will be even more valuable when he is able to personify the easy grace as well.