LONDON, United Kingdom — The Stone Roses are David Beckham's favourite band. He plays their music every single day. "I Am the Resurrection" is his favourite track, however much you might wish it was "I Wanna Be Adored." Beckham doesn't need any more adoration than he already has. Which is why it was charming to see how unhinged he was in the presence of his idols – well, two of them, at least (guitarist John Squire and bassist Mani) – at the Kent & Curwen presentation on Sunday afternoon. Beckham insisted something similar might happen if he was to run into a football immortal like Maradona or Pele, but this was THE ROSES!

And their spirit saturated the new K&C collection. Beckham’s been the brand ambassador for a couple of years now, and his favourite band made it onto the mood board after he’d had a sitdown with designer Daniel Kearns, who was also a Roses fan. Kearns was already thinking about celebrating British summers, and what said celebration more than a music festival? Hence, a collection that combined K&C’s vintage sporting iconography with the trackies, zipped tops, cagoules and bucket hats of Madchester ravers. They were remarkably compatible. As Beckham pointed out, music and sport are both about moments in history and the fierce power of nostalgia. And there was a time when the rivalry between the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays was quite the microcosm of the one which existed between Manchester City and Man United.

Kearns made a case for “elevated sportswear” with his revisited classics – the Great Coat in cotton, the cagoule in softest leather – but what gave the collection its real uplift was the colour: the vibrant stripes of a football shirt, the zest of the suede Wallabees. If the past often fades, here it was vividly resurrected, fired up by an ambassadorial passion for pop.