In late 2023, erstwhile lovers Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny were photographed riding through a departure lounge, bundled onto piles of monogrammed luggage. It was part of Sabato de Sarno’s debut Gucci Valigeria campaign, but it could just as feasibly have been an ode to the Beckhams – arriving at Heathrow Airport in 1997 with more than a complete set of Louis Vuitton suitcases, or landing at Narita in Tokyo in coordinating Gucci blazers in 2003.
That is because the Beckhams understand the inherent glamour of being photographed in an airport: a clinical environment that scrambles with hierarchies, forcing people from across social stratas to queue and stare at massive TV screens together. How, then, does someone maintain a sense of mystique when just about everything in those spaces – giant Toblerones, giant outposts of TGI Friday’s – is so devoid of charm? In Victoria Beckham’s case, the answer will always bubble up through clothing.
That is because the Beckhams understand the inherent glamour of being photographed in an airport: a clinical environment that scrambles with hierarchies, forcing people from across social stratas to queue and stare at massive TV screens together. How, then, does someone maintain a sense of mystique when just about everything in those spaces – giant Toblerones, giant outposts of TGI Friday’s – is so devoid of charm? In Victoria Beckham’s case, the answer will always bubble up through clothing.
Yesterday afternoon, the designer was papped at JFK in face-swamping sunglasses, an hourglass jacket of her own making and a pair of Balenciaga pantaboots, which might also have functioned as a sort of in-flight compression sock. It helped, of course, that Beckham had an assistant to carry her Goyard luggage – which isn’t a luxury afforded to most travellers but is nonetheless a salient directive: please, unshackle yourself from the curse of airport “comfies”. There is glamour to be found in even the most tedious of surroundings.
