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SPeace Girl. Aspiring solo singer. Queen of Wags. Tabloid picture of fun. Famous fashion designer. head of britain Other Royal family. In the public eye over the course of three decades, Victoria Beckham Has undergone a very public metamorphosis, which very few stars would have been able to accomplish.
If, for example, around that time Spice World was released in theaters in 1997, you’ll find out that the posh one in the “little Gucci dress” will actually show off her collection at Paris Fashion Week (and the crowd will lap it up), You’d be forgiven for raising a skeptical eyebrow. And yet, since her girl band days, Victoria has managed to almost completely flip the script on her public persona. “I wouldn’t call it a reinvention,” she said. Harper’s Bazaar In 2020. “I would say it’s an evolution.”
The next step in this “evolution”? His latest incarnation as a Netflix star. Victoria BeckhamA Three-part documentary, arrives today on the streaming platform, and promises to look back at her music career and life in the spotlight, as well as the struggles she faced while building her eponymous fashion brand. “It takes a lot to make me cry, but I cried,” the 51-year-old recently revealed. The Sunday Times About his filming experience.
This apparently more outspoken, less guarded Victoria is miles away from the woman who famously refuses to smile in photographs. So how did he achieve such an impressively iconic 180?
Remember the late nineties when Victoria Adams was best known as one-fifth (later one-fourth) of the Spice Girls. Her girlband star status meant that when she started dating a rising footballer David BeckhamShe was the more famous half of the pair. However, after the band’s split in 2001, she never really bounced back, seeming to wobble a bit after Geri Halliwell’s departure a few years earlier.
His solo efforts failed, and his public persona was not at all affected by the fact that he was blamed for distracting “Golden Balls” David from his career on the pitch. Whenever she performed poorly, Victoria and her flash showbiz lifestyle were solely to blame. Manchester United manager (and David’s mentor) Alex Ferguson once said, “He never had a problem until he got married.”
With their matchy-matchy, label-laden designer outfits and ever-changing hairstyles, the pair became the poster couple for the noughties’ more-than-celebrity culture: posing on the throne wearing complementary purple getups for their wedding reception was just the beginning. As tabloid attention increased on Posh and Bex and their young family, Victoria retreated behind large sunglasses, her face appearing stony in photographs; It was a tactic that resulted in her being portrayed as an icy foil to her warm, friendly husband. She has since revealed that her disaffected expression was rooted in insecurities about her skin. “Everyone else saw a woman who looked angry and harsh,” he said. sunday times Last year. “I guess that’s how I got the reputation of being such a sad cow.”
When Victoria took her first proper steps into fashion design, expectations weren’t exactly sky-high. The year was 2008: Her personal style had become synonymous with big handbags, oversized shades, and form-fitting WAG gear (for example, the pink ensemble she wore to the press conference marking her husband’s arrival at the LA Galaxy was crowned with a bleach blonde, asymmetric “pob,” which launched thousands of copycat cuts).
But instead of opting for all the bells and whistles of a classic celeb brand launch, Victoria decided to quietly step into the fashion world. Her first collection consisted of just 10 simple, smartly tailored dresses, and instead of emptying the contents of her VIP address book, she invited a select group of tastemakers to see it in New York.
You could practically hear the surprise as the world’s fashion editors shared their positive reviews: many timesCritic Lisa Armstrong praised Victoria’s debut as “a very impressive, accomplished collection, with not a single nonsense in it” before admitting “I can’t believe I’m writing this”.
Of course, it always helps if the clothes are good, but Beckham’s unexpected candidness was also a winner. From the beginning, she was clear that she had no training in traditional fashion; She admits that she can create designs, “but badly”, and that she is more responsible for the overall creative vision than the specifics of pattern cutting. When the brand first launched, she carefully talked editors and buyers through her creative choices and inspirations, giving a more personal touch to the proceedings.
For some celebrities, comfort is everything; Part of their secret is the fact that they somehow “get it all” while barely breaking a sweat. However, Victoria Beckham is not that kind of celeb. Instead, she was never afraid to admit being corrupt. “In school I had to work very hard to get below-average grades,” he said. to coax“When I was dancing and singing, I had to work really hard to be good, but I was never that good.”
It would be naive to claim that Victoria’s experience in the industry has been anything like the hard work an ambitious Central Saint Martins graduate might experience when attempting to launch their own brand: from the start, she has had significant financial backing behind her. But it would also be foolish to ignore the fact that he has certainly paid his dues, rather than expecting success to come to him just because of his last name. “The difference is that I wanted to learn the industry, not just throw something in there that might promise returns,” she explained recently. sunday times“I wanted to understand and learn my trade.”
After starting out small, Victoria graduated to the big catwalk and wowed major industry names like Anna Wintour; It wasn’t until the brand became a more established enterprise that his famous family came out en masse for his runway shows (though those photo opportunities were certainly a clever profile-boost). In 2014, they opened their first store in Dover Street, London; Five years later, they launched a spin-off beauty brand, and in 2022, the label began appearing at Paris Fashion Week, perhaps the biggest sign yet that it has truly been accepted by tastemakers. Very few celebrity fashion brands have achieved anything close to the lasting power of Victoria’s labels; Very few are still truly respected by industry insiders (perhaps the only other celebrity brand enjoying similar status is Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s The Row).
Victoria has always been funnier than we gave her credit for
Although the label is a red carpet favorite, worn by Jennifer Lopez, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, and the Princess of Wales, its financial losses have also been well-documented (with a certain level of schadenfreude, shall we say). However, despite it being a difficult market for luxury fashion at the moment, sales grew 26 per cent last year to £112.7m. This is the fourth year the brand has recorded double-digit revenue growth (although its operating losses are set to reach £1.6m, up from £215,000 in 2023, which clouds the picture somewhat). It is believed that the beauty arm of the business, offering a more accessible slice of Beckham-approved luxury, has led to a surge in its fortunes; One of her satin kajal eyeliner products reportedly sells out every 30 seconds.
Of course, Victoria’s image is carefully crafted. But over the past decade or so, they have certainly worked to debunk some of the old preconceived notions; For example, his public image was as unsmiling, humorless, and somewhat laid-back. She’s always been a lot more fun than we gave her credit for. You only have to watch his high-camp, groundbreaking 2007 documentary Victoria Beckham: Coming to America To realize that she was always willing to toy with the ridiculousness of her personality – although the doc was probably so lame that viewers couldn’t tell whether she was serious or not.
Social media has helped her project her personality in a way she never could when paparazzi shots and tabloid headlines were her main means of exposure to the public. On Instagram, she’ll share sweet (albeit stage-driven) insights into family life and happily poke fun at her hit-and-miss Spice Girls performances (“I can joke about it better than anyone,” she previously told us). to coax“I’ll take the mickey out of myself.”) And infusing some of her designs with a sense of self-aware amusement has helped develop the sense that she, too, is in on the joke, as when she launched T-shirts with slogans like “Fashion stole my smile” and “I can’t concentrate in flats.”
Her cameo in her husband’s Netflix documentary, 2023 beckhamonly helped to soften her public persona – not least the unintentionally hilarious moment when she declared herself “very working class”, only for David to pop his head around the door to remind her that his father would take her to school in a Rolls-Royce. he recently told sunday times that she initially “didn’t love me in that documentary”, but reaction to that viral clip Helped him see things differently.
It seemed like the public was really excited about this unsafe VB. Maybe that’s why she agreed to her own Netflix series. She has described the filming process as “almost like therapy”, but as usual with Beckham, we can probably expect there to be limits to this highly praised openness. For example, the possibility of delving into the rumor mill between eldest son Brooklyn, his wife Nicola Peltz, and the rest of the family seems unlikely. However, one thing we can definitely predict is that Victoria will emerge as the best advertisement of her brand.
‘Victoria Beckham’ is on Netflix