At 48, Victoria Beckham finally knows what women want to wear

Throughout her various incarnations, Victoria Beckham’s talents have had all kinds of rocks lobbed at them. According to her critics, she can’t sing. She can’t dance. She can’t design. And their point is?

If revenge is best served cold, la Beckham is about to dish hers up straight from the freezer, because her fashion and beauty brand is, according to David Belhassen, founder and Managing Partner of Neo Investment Partners, finally about to turn a profit. Belhassen says revenues are up by 42 per cent to £58 million.

Admittedly, to a neophyte follower of the markets like yours truly, this seems a bit like Daddy saying that Sophie is guaranteed to get a First. After all, the most recent accounts, which cover the period up to December 2021, show a loss of £2.2 million.

Also, Belhasen has vested interests here since NIP has money in Victoria Beckham. But let’s assume it’s not in his best interests to make public unrealistic claims at this juncture, and focus instead on how the most mocked of the Spice Girls reinvented herself not just as a celebrity “designer”  but as a genuine fashion contender.

Whatever your views of Beckham inc, no one can fault her tenacity. Her label has been going for nearly 15 years, propped up for most of them by her and her husband’s incomes from other ventures.

That isn’t to suggest that the clothes were no good. Rather it’s an indication of how supremely tough it is in today’s world of mega brands such as Louis Vuitton (revenue of over $20 billion in 2022), and Chanel ($15.5 billion in 2022), for an independent to cut through without a foundation of accessories and perfumes to buoy them up. If you think back to the many celebrities who launched their own labels in the 2000s era, or collaborated with high-street chains from Lily Allen’s short-lived venture with New Look to Katie Holmes, Avril Lavigne, Alexa Chung and Jennifer Lopez’s solo brands, only Beckham and The Row’s founders, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, are still standing.

While The Row garnered a cultish fashion following from the get-go, Beckham struggled. Yet the truth is that from the beginning Beckham’s clothes were impressive. I know this because I was there when she launched that first capsule collection of 10 dresses, in 2008, in a suite at the Waldorf Hotel in Manhattan. I remember it well because unlike so many other cynical celebrity tie-ins of the time, she was actually present. In fact she was all over her label, smilingly (yes, off camera she smiles and laughs a lot) greeting tiny groups of fashion editors and knowledgeably talking them through the raison d’etre and construction of her clothes.

At that point, the fashion world didn’t hold her in high esteem. Her reign as WAG-in-Chief made her queen of everything that, in those days, was deemed un-chic and unstylish. Those fashion editors probably constituted the toughest crowd she’d ever face.

But to everyone’s surprise, the clothes (rumoured to have been overseen by Roland Mouret who then worked for the same, Simon Fuller-owned stable as Victoria Beckham did) were beautifully made and well thought out. If nothing else, Beckham had worn her share of statement outfits and knew what was comfortable and what worked. While the Waldorf suite may have been grand (fashion demands high tone even from rookies), she was not  always accessible and far less of a prima donna than many non-celebrity designers. Gradually she felt her way towards catwalk shows. Small at first (with Beckham sitting alongside the catwalk quaintly introducing each outfit as if she were a provincial designer from the 1950s), but gradually the shows grew in size.

Did it help that photographers and journalists could generally rely on getting a front-page worthy picture of the Beckham family in the front row (complete with Anna Wintour cameo) and a snappy, knowingly-risque quote from VB? Of course. But the bottom line was that the clothes were polished and wearable. Prestigious stockists such as Net-a-Porter.com and Harrods followed. Harvey Nichols, initially put off by her girl-band rep, demurred, and later regretted their decision. A Diptyque-scented large white box of a flagship store opened on London’s Dover Street, opposite the fashion mecca of Dover Street Market, which VB, having completely overhauled her WAG image, declared to be her favourite store in the world.

In 2018, she began presenting at London Fashion Week where her show became a star attraction –  further proof that British designers could do grown-up, luxurious, polished clothes. Long after her fellow Spicers had yielded centre stage, VB continued to be a major presence in pop culture, guaranteed clickbait.

Yet, as her critics loved to point out, her label never made a profit. Dover Street Market moved locations shortly after her shop’s arrival. Tumbleweed fluttered down the street. As recently as January it was reported that her brand had lost £80 million since its launch in 2008.

So what’s happened in the intervening months? Partly it’s about perception. It’s not abnormal for a fashion brand to get through $80 million in 15 years. Given that Versace’s recent show in LA was estimated to have cost around £12 million for just the one event, $80 million is arguably modest. Secondly, there has been a lot of pruning (one could include her controversial decision to take government furlough for her 30 members of her staff during the pandemic, a decision she later rescinded) in the past three years.

Thirdly, after a succession of CEOs, the current incumbent Marie Leblanc de Reynies seems a good fit. A stylish, French 40-something with previous experience at Sonia Rykiel, Celine (a brand of studied cool that Beckham would love to emulate) and most recently Printemps, the Parisian department store which de Reynies helped redefine, under her watch the Victoria Beckham has been repositioned.

The last point is a lesson in humility. When Beckham launched her label she was determined it would reflect the kind of clothes she’d come to appreciate –  immaculately made and uncompromisingly expensive. But where the Olsens had managed to make their luxury line highly sought after by discerning fashion customers, Beckham never quite managed to attract enough of the same clients. Always visibly trying hard, she was never “cool”.

Customers and retailers alike may also have been deterred by those lingering WAG associations. Beckham did her best to shed them, refusing to participate in the 2019 Spice Girls reunion tour – but unable to resist courting publicity she will, for some, be forever cast as a celebrity dilettante. The arrival of the chic, sophisticated de Reynies perhaps helped Beckham see that reducing the prices of her top line and incorporating into it the previously separate diffusion line, Victoria by Victoria Beckham, would provide some much needed clarity for customers as well as giving them a reason to shop there rather than go straight to Celine, Max Mara or The Row.

Most recently, she had a mini It-bag moment when her Chain Pouch – a leather clutch with a strap inspired by a wristwatch – sold out. “There’s now a waitlist,“ she told The Telegraph recently. “After two seasons to have that success with a bag, is really exciting. I thought it would take a lot longer to have a hit bag.”

It’s also worth pointing out that at 48, Beckham now has a far more nuanced and rounded view of how a real woman – albeit a glamorous, affluent one – might want to dress throughout the day. “I can really see how the community is evolving,” she says. “You’ve only got to look at Instagram to see the amount of women posting pictures wearing the clothes.”

Let’s not forget the sunglasses, which as a habitual wearer, she’s good at designing, and her “clean” make-up brand that launched in 2019. It may only sell on her own website –  another clue as to how difficult it is to break into department stores and airport duty frees when you’re an independent –  but it’s highly regarded. Make-up and skin care are two topics close to her heart and that lends it extra authenticity.

Does she actually design her own collections is the question the public most frequently and justifiably wonders about her. If by that they mean does she sketch out detailed designs, the answer is almost certainly no. She has a team doing that for her and she puts in her (multi million) penny’s worth. There’s no question that she does her research, ensuring she always works with the most highly regarded photographers, stylists (Joe McKenna and most recently, Jane Howe) and publicists (the ultra-well-connected Lucien Pagès in Paris).

Speaking of Paris, last September, in yet another bold move, she took her show to the motherlode of fashion: head to head with illustrious names such as Saint Laurent, Chanel, Hermes and yes, The Row. “I feel that last season in Paris was a real flag-in-the-sand moment, it almost reignited the brand,” she says. Objectively, the clothes were almost entirely eclipsed by the front row presence of her apparently estranged daughter-in-law Nicola Peltz Beckham with her new husband Brooklyn Beckham. Arguably, deep down, Beckham still doesn’t have quite enough confidence in her own fashion handwriting to let her clothes speak for themselves.

Alternatively, maybe she just likes having her family around her. Luckily, retailers saw past the hyperbolics and liked the collection. By her own admission she feels bolstered by the uptick in her business. “I’ve got an amazing team, an amazing CEO, great investors,beauty’s doing well and yes, it’s an exciting time,” she says.

If the Spice Girl who always took most flak (for just about everything) turned out to be a bona-fide business success in her sixth decade, wouldn’t that be an example for all the triers out there?

Lisa Armstrong’s VB hits

Clockwise from top left: Satin Kajal longwear waterproof eyeliner, £26; Wrap front midi dress, £750; Chain pouch, £890; Sculptural trouser, £590; Classic flat top V Sunglasses, £300, all victoriabeckham.com