How Victoria Beckham "Tries On" Her Art Collection

Victoria Beckham is well known for wear-testing her own designs. She’s often photographed arriving at airports wearing her latest collection, and, as noted at this week’s launch of her Reebok collaboration, she works out in her own sweats and leggings, as well.

Now it turns out she’s wear-testing her art collections, too.

“I can tell this going to be a posh dinner,” said the former Posh Spice on Thursday evening, upon entering the director’s dining room of the Gilded Age mansion that houses the Frick Collection on Fifth Avenue. Upstairs from the old masters, the Rembrandts and Renoirs, were guests with comparable valuations, including Crown Prince Pavlos of and Princess Marie Chantal of Greece, the photographers Mario Sorrenti and Mary Frey, and super chic gallerists Sarah Hoover from Gagosian and Lucy Chadwick of Gavin Brown’s Enterprise.

Beckham was on Day Three of a New York City tour that included a wild dance party, her Reebok launch, and, on Thursday, hosting duties for the opening of an exhibition at Sotheby’s that was centered on the rare female artists of the 16th to 19thcenturies. Before dinner at the Frick, Beckham perused the galleries of paintings by Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, Angelika Kauffmann, and Marie-Victoire Lemoine, some of which she had exhibited in her Dover Street store in London in partnership with Sotheby’s last year. Displaying those works in her store created quite an impression, she said, but even their temporary guardianship was a lot to bear, especially during cocktail parties.

“There was a lot of champagne next to a lot of very expensive pieces of art,” Beckham said. “I was much more nervous than a lot of the actual owners, who seemed to be very relaxed and having a lot more fun.”