What Does David Beckham Smell Like?

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There’s hardly a human alive who doesn’t know the name David Beckham. He’s one of the most famous athlete-celebrities in the world. He has a right foot blessed by the heavens. He's been one half of the ultimate power couple since the late '90s, when he started dating and then married Posh Spice. He’s the guy who’s been all over your television and social media feed since his Netflix docuseries debuted last week. Now, he's taking on your cologne lineup with a new collection from his David Beckham Fragrances line.

The most recent launch, dubbed The Collection, is a trio of scents capturing Beckham’s personal experiences—the places he’s been and loved. There’s Infinite Aqua, an ode to Los Angeles, which features lemon, waterlily, and sandalwood, while Aromatic Greens, a bittersweet symphony of lemon, mint, cedar wood, and patchouli, recalls Bekcham’s country house in England. The set is completed with Refined Woods, which is exactly the kind of scent you would expect from a world-class soccer player: luxurious, exotic, warm and spicy with cardamom, tonka, and vetiver recalling the places he's lived, including Spain, Italy, England, and France.

“I want to be reminded of the places that I love,” says Beckham. We’re in a private room at Torrisi, one of the hardest tables to book in the lower Manhattan neighborhood Nolita. A speaker blasting The Weeknd's music is muffled through the door; outside is a party, celebrating the launch of the new set, which retails for $55 per fragrance. In here, Beckham's new trio is on display in their rounded bottles, each one prompting a story from the star. “With fragrance, we get that.”

There’s storytelling in each fragrance of The Collection, but there's also this simple goal: “I always want to create something that makes you feel good,” says Beckham. Smelling good, feeling good—it’s all related. Read Esquire’s full interview with Beckham below. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Tell me about the origin story for The Collection.

I've been lucky enough to work with Coty for the last 20 years, and it excited me when they turned around and said, “We have an idea: we want to bring three into the market, and we want it to be about your travels and about your living in different countries.”

Can you tell me more about the creative process that follows a prompt like that?

It’s always hands-on. Anything that I do, it has to be hands-on. Any business and partner that I've had over the years, they're kind of surprised by how much involvement I want. It's literally down to every single detail. I like to sit with the nose, and I'm on top of every single detail, from the scent to the packaging to the size of the label and to the font.

Walk me through Aromatic Greens.

This is what I like when I'm in the countryside: I love the piney [aroma], I love freshly cut grass. All of that, I love. So that's why we've done this one. And then the Refined Woods is all the different cultures that I've lived in. I've been lucky enough to live firstly in Manchester, then I've obviously moved to Madrid, then I moved to L.A. If I'd have stayed as a Manchester United player, that never would have happened. Victoria [Beckham] always jokes to me, she always says, “Wherever you live, you morph into a local.” I throw myself into different places. Even if I go there for two weeks on vacation, I'm like, I am going to dress like a local. That's what I want to do and that's how I am. And that's the kind of thing that I enjoy.

Now, obviously, the Infinite Aqua for me was one of my favorite ones, purely because I love riding [motorcycles]. I used to love going down the PCH in L.A., and that smell will forever stay with me—of the fresh sea air. I have an old chopper bike, so when I ride it, I have an open helmet and every kind of scent, every smell, the coolness of the air, the heat, everything that I get when I'm on a bike, that's why we did this.

I was born and raised in L.A., and as soon as I spritzed Infinite Aqua, it reminded me of the beach I used to go to.

We always say that about different fragrances. It takes you back somewhere. And even more so for me, like I said before, I want to be reminded of the places that I live, the places that I love. And with fragrance, we get that. It's like hearing a song from 30 years ago and remembering [where you were]. It's the same with the scents.

How did your love of fragrances first come about?

My grandfather used to have two fragrances: Old Spice and Fahrenheit. And every time that I used to go round his house, when I was six or seven years old, I used to be just tall enough to reach the cabinet, and that's where he kept his fragrances. And I used to spray them on me and he used to obviously see straight away that I had used them. But that was really my first love of fragrances. It was my grandfather.

I saw your expansive closet in the miniseries—I'm curious if your bathroom looks similarly pristine, in terms of all of your grooming products.

[Laughs] The other day, my wife told me something that [our daughter] Harper did. She was on FaceTime with her little friend from school, and she was going through my wife's cabinet of all of her face products.

I'm sure that's not a small collection.

Trust me, it's a lot bigger than mine. I end up just stealing Victoria's stuff that she doesn't want, or she gives me the stuff that she doesn't want. But Harper was on FaceTime and she apparently turned around to her friend and said, “Look how tidy my daddy's cupboard is.” Every cupboard that I have, whether it's clothing, hair products, skincare, it's unbelievably tidy.

By the way, I don't know if you've seen the reaction online to your closet, but people are so concerned that you're hanging up your knitwear.

[Laughs] They are very concerned. And you know what? They have a point. But in all honesty, my wife has the larger side of the closet. And really, that's the only space that I have. So it's either hang them, or they're just going to be lying on an armchair somewhere. I'd rather them hanging.

Infinite Aqua

Aromatic Greens

Refined Woods

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