Spice Girl, fashion designer, burgeoning national treasure … and now, with a new Mango range, queen of the high street.
The first rule of being Victoria Beckham is that you’re not supposed to complain about being Victoria Beckham — even when you’ve been hobbling around on crutches for the past six weeks. “It is all getting a little bit boring now,” she confesses, gesturing towards the black fracture boot that has been attached to her right leg since February, and then backtracks: “I know how lucky I am to have been looked after so well, and everyone has been so helpful.”
We are in Hammersmith, west London, at the head office of her successful fashion business. Poised to talk about a range of clothes she has designed for Mango — which, unbelievably, is Beckham’s first high street collaboration — the designer, brand founder and global style icon sits before me on a marshmallow of a sofa. She is wearing a pair of skinny black trousers and a neatly fitting ribbed sweater from her own label. Her “good foot” is housed in a pull-on heeled boot. The other, injured in a gym accident and documented on her husband’s Instagram account with the kind of affectionate teasing that has become the line-dancing duo’s brand of late, is wedged under a glass coffee table. Beckham, who radiates more warmth than the tabloids have ever given her credit for, isn’t complaining. “I do feel quite content at the moment, even with the dodgy foot.”
The former Spice Girl has been doing a lot of that recently — smiling, that is. “I looked at some pictures of myself recently and was really struck by how happy I looked,” she says. “In the past I’ve always looked at those red carpet pictures of me and seen a woman who looks nervous and insecure. Everyone else saw a woman who looked grumpy and stern — I suppose that’s how I got the reputation of being such a miserable cow.” Beckham smiles again.
When we meet, Beckham is weeks away from turning 50 (she reached that milestone on April 17). “I’m excited about the future,” she says of the birthday, which she plans to celebrate with a “family dinner”. “The thing with ageing is that it is what it is. I always remember Marc Jacobs saying to me when he turned 60 that it was better than the alternative of not turning 60. It’s good advice! But generally I feel good about things. I have better opportunities now than I did when I was younger.”
It must help that things are going well at work. Beckham is no longer the novelty act designer she once was, her status as a serious fashion founder at last sealed. Not only does her label have a recurring spot on Paris’s prestigious fashion week schedule — where she owns Friday night’s headline slot — but her fashion line, launched as a capsule collection of ten dresses in 2008, is now not just profitable, it’s a brand on the up. Meanwhile, Beckham’s beauty offshoot — a medley of insider-endorsed make-up and fragrances — is also in the black. And this week she launches her collaboration with Mango, a range including low-key tuxedo jackets and slip dresses designed with a typically “VB” aesthetic.
I can’t help thinking that the public reaction to the Netflix documentary that charted her husband’s journey from promising young footballer to global superforce has also contributed to the contented Victoria Beckham I see before me. Since the four-part series, which amassed 3.8 million viewers during its first week in October and cast Mrs Beckham in various roles, including forgiving wife and accomplished comedian, she has emerged with national treasure status. No one is more surprised by the warm reception than the woman herself. “David and I have both been kicked so much in the past, so to get to the point where people go, actually, ‘You go’, ‘Good on you’, is a nice surprise. But it was never about trying to be perfect.”
Beckham, who attended the premiere with her family and has never been at ease in front of a TV camera, avoided watching the emotional last episode until after much of the world had tuned in. “It was on a flight to Miami that we finally watched it,” she said. “David suggested we get a bottle of wine. It was a nice moment — we both felt really proud.”
Addressing the Beckham back story — good, bad and occasionally ugly — was a labour of love for the family that took two years to film. “I don’t get nervous when I’m playing myself but it was certainly a real process,” she says. “Going over all that stuff again can be … There are also things that are hard to remember. Like, Fisher [Stevens, the series’ director and award-winning documentary maker who also played Hugo in Succession] would bring up a goal that David scored 25 years ago, and that can make you quite anxious.”
Despite the superyacht, the flights back and forth from Miami — where David’s football club is based — and the couple’s collective net worth of £425 million ($891 million), there is a determination to build on the down-to-earth qualities that won over viewers of the documentary. First came an advertisement with Uber Eats — aired during the Super Bowl — and now we have the collection with Mango, which will offer Beckham’s signature look at much lower prices than her main line. A blazer will set you back £180, while a slip dress is £140, so it’s not quite Zara levels of affordability but more aligned with the grown-up end of the category — think Whistles or Cos. Sizing ranges from small to extra large, with some pieces available up to size 16. It’s also heavy on accessories, with jewellery and footwear a key focus. The leather sandals (£120) are very much on my wish list. “I have a strong aesthetic I know people can relate to,” she says of the collaboration. “I see this as an opportunity to bring what I do to a new community.”
Beckham wants it to be relevant and modern without being too centred on appealing to a specific trend. “It’s always about what I want to wear and this collection is no different. I always put myself into the clothes I design. I think tailoring is probably where the high street finds it a little bit more difficult to compete with higher-end brands” — a tuxedo jacket in black (£215) is among the new range’s star pieces — “so I really wanted to focus on making one for this collection that could stand the test of time.”
Beckham, who says she is a long-term fan of the Spanish chain, has also tried hard to appeal to a broad spectrum of ages with this collection. Having previously resisted invitations from high street brands looking to collaborate, she enjoyed the process, which cast her back to her youth. “For me, growing up, it was only ever the high street. I wasn’t in a position to wear designer clothes, my mum never wore designer clothes. Whether I was shopping or looking for inspiration, that is where we went.” She remembers the excitement of travelling from her childhood home in Goffs Oak, Hertfordshire, to London to shop at her favourite stores. “I suppose it was a rite of passage.”
These days, Posh doesn’t spend a lot of time on the high street. With the exception of a grey T-shirt that she buys at a well-known high street retailer (she won’t divulge which), she wears her own label (or “me”, as she puts it) 99 per cent of the time. The expensive designer clothes that were her signature during the early years of her career have been committed to storage. “I’m in a lucky position of having a lot of things, which I keep in a temperature-controlled storage facility,” she says, going on to describe the cataloguing process by which things are logged online. “I can go on to the site and type ‘black shoe’ and it brings them all up.”
I’m not surprised to hear that this archive has become a point of interest for Beckham’s 12-year-old daughter, Harper, who, Beckham says, is most interested in the bags. I wonder if her daughter-in-law also has her eye on her designer back catalogue? Nicola Peltz Beckham, who married Victoria’s eldest son, Brooklyn, in 2022, was recently spotted wearing a Dolce & Gabbana biker jacket identical to one Beckham wore in 2001. “We actually don’t know if that one is mine or not,” she says. “Years ago I sold quite a few of my clothes and gave the money to the Red Cross. There weren’t that many of those made so it could be. There’s also a Chanel ski suit that was spotted on Kim Kardashian that could be mine.”
Markers of a life lived in the public eye, Beckham’s most memorable outfits provide a moment of nostalgia for those of us who have followed her career. As do her husband’s: who could forget “sarong-gate” or the couple’s matching Maharishi trousers era? “Some trends should be left in the past,” she says now.
These days there’s a sense that the Beckhams have less to prove. Certainly with her brand and her personal image, Victoria has fallen into a groove. “I still think it’s important to evolve and try new things. I don’t ever want to be that person that is in a rut,” she says. “Because I think women probably get to a certain age where they’re scared, and I think it is important to change it up, whether it’s, you know, a different shoulder on a tailored jacket — you know, maybe more of a boxy shape as opposed to more fitted. It’s those little, tiny differences that can keep you relevant.”
This philosophy takes her miles from the purple side-slashed dress she wore at the Beckhams’ media frenzy of a wedding at Luttrellstown Castle, Ireland, in 1999. But then it’s fair to say that she and David, who spent time in Madrid and LA before returning to the UK (they have homes in London and the Cotswolds) ten years ago, have lived a thousand lives since then.
Like most mothers with children who have flown the nest, Beckham is enjoying a new kind of relationship with her beloved boys, Brooklyn, 25, Romeo, 21, and Cruz, 19. She recounts facetiming Brooklyn, a budding chef living in LA, for advice on how to use a Coravin wine stopper. “It was great to be able to pick up the phone and say, ‘Help your mum out,’” she says.
With Harper, the youngest of her brood, still at home and at school in London, Beckham remains very hands-on with parenting. This sounds more normal than I imagine as she describes how the two of them made a late-night trip to Waitrose the night before to get a specific snack Harper wanted for school. “I’ve never not done those things, neither has David. They are important.” The mother-and-daughter duo also enjoy a glam night together. “We do them when David is away,” she says, adding, “tonight it’s fake tan.”
Whether with Harper’s fake tan collection or her trusty LED lamp, Beckham is learning to relax more. And for the first time in her life she is also enjoying watching football. “I do like watching Miami,” she says, namechecking the team that signed Lionel Messi last year, “but that might just be because the sun is shining.”
Written by: Karen Dacre
© The Times of London
