Pop star, author, model, reality television personality and fashion designer Victoria Beckham has acquired another prefix to her name: gallerina. Victoria yesterday afternoon announced that she was partnering with Sotheby’s to curate a collection of contemporary art for her Dover Street flagship. “Art has always been a source of inspiration and over the years, I’ve so enjoyed learning and educating myself,” she said. “It has the power to spark ideas, evoke emotion and speak to the world around us.”
The second time Victoria has provided an exhibition space for the auction house – she partnered with Sotheby’s in 2018 to show a selection of Old Masters works – this particular display, set to go on sale in the coming months, includes cartoonish portraits by Yoshitomo Nara, abstract pastels by Joan Mitchell and kinetic collages by Jean-Michel Basquiat. The designer was photographed before a bright, fractured tableau by the American artist George Condo – himself a reformed band member – in a cut-out, pointelle-knit top and gossamer skirt plucked from her own spring/summer 2025 collection.
The look is as cultivated as any of Frieze London’s best-dressed cognoscenti, and yet it would be conjecture to perceive any sort of shift in persona taking place here: a figure-hugging knit and wispy skirt is, at this point, Victoria’s go-to uniform. (The designer wore the exact same outfit – albeit in black and anchored to transparent heels – to the launch of husband David’s Boss campaign just last week, and before that achieved the same effect in pinstripe Balenciaga during Paris Fashion Week.) Plus, if she really wanted to reinvent herself as an art world dragon, I’d expect there to be a little more Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake thrown into the mix.
