Victoria Beckham on her polished New York Fashion Week collection: 'It’s always fundamentally about what I like to wear'

“It’s always fundamentally about what I like to wear,” said Victoria Beckham ahead of her AW2017 New York Fashion Week show. But as we know well by now, more often than not that wish translates into pieces grown-up women looking for elegant, easy pieces will want to add to their wardrobes, too.

Beckham had resolved to move away from “showpieces” (the statement items often created especially for the catwalk which rarely translate to real-life) focussing instead on “a reality… which is very important for me.”

The tailoring was a finely executed example of the attention to detail which is paid to every design. An update on the double-breasted jacket came with a modernising folded-back detail while coats featured voluminous, sculptural sleeves.

Victoria Beckham autumn winter 2017 show

“I love the baggy pants,” she added (she was wearing a black pair herself), at pains to reassure that “there’s a flattering way of doing that. I think it’s about getting the cut right, getting the weight of the fabric right.”

Colour has become one of the designer’s strongest suits. She called the oxblood, grey and navy tones a “gentleman’s club” palette which was then enhanced with pops of raspberry and a soft pale blue.

The collection’s graphic, abstract prints came to Beckham after visiting Tate Britain’s recent Paul Nash retrospective, and were shown most powerfully on breezy chiffon skirts and sleek jersey dresses.

The accessories underscored the meeting of masculine and feminine influences which ran through each look. A new monk strap  brogue spoke to Beckham’s recently rekindled love of flats while the knee-high, slouchy, wedge-heeled boots “are intended to make you feel strong and empowered rather than too ladylike.”

There’s a new bag on the cards too, inspired by her beauty collaboration with Estee Lauder, the second collection of which was unveiled this week. “I had the idea of a vintage vanity case and how it would be cool to bring that back.”

The VB Vanity Box is at once classically refined and roomy enough to fit phone, keys, wallet, lipstick and a few other essentials. “Secure, feminine, strong, empowered,” is how we’ll feel carrying said bag, according to Beckham. It’s a proposition her global customer base are bound to adore.

Here's how Victoria Beckham's autumn/winter 2017 show unfolded live.... 

5:45PM

See every single look from the runway

The show is over and all 34 of the designer's models have hit the catwalk. As we wait for our critic's report and backstage interview with Victoria, let's assess every look up close...

Victoria Beckham autumn winter 2017 show

4:18PM

‘I just can’t do heels anymore’ - Victoria Beckham brings her flats mantra to the catwalk

You can read all about her new It bag style below, but let’s take a moment to appreciate Victoria Beckham's shoe news. It’s flats all the way for Beckham these days, and she was keen to debut some practical, yet edgy and chic options on the runway for the season ahead. “I just can’t do heels any more,” she told Telegraph Fashion Director Lisa Armstrong in an interview last year. "At least not when I’m working. I travel a lot. Clothes have to be simple and comfortable.”

As such, today’s pointed monk styles were her hero piece and the designer posted several pictures to show off their ‘pin’ studs and buckle detailing backstage. Also on the menu were glossy block heel boots in wine and white - taking tones directly from the collection and the Paul Nash paintings on her mood board and injecting them into the accessories.

4:00PM

Is Harper Beckham carrying a Goyard handbag? 

Harper Beckham is already showing a penchant for handbags that could rival her mother’s, carrying what is believed to be a handbag by luxury French luggage company Goyard as she attended the Victoria Beckham autumn 2017 fashion show today. (Side note: her boots were £240 Gucci kids.)

The five year-old clutched a leather minibag in one of the brand’s signature geometric prints, likely to have cost in excess of £1,000. Established in 1853 in Paris, Goyard is considered one of the world’s most exclusive luggage companies - it doesn’t reveal its prices online, and only sells limited edition, artisanal collections, to modern day fans including Meghan Markle.

The brand does not specifically produce a children’s collection, meaning that Harper’s bag may even be a bespoke commission. Or inherited from her mum, of course.... 

3:57PM

Prints inspired by the artist Paul Nash 

Where does Victoria Beckham get her inspiration? The Tate Britain it seems. The designer told The Telegraph’s Bethan Holt backstage that she’d been particularly moved by the landscapes she saw at the Paul Nash exhibition in London recently. That was evident in the blue, yellow and browns on the silk dresses that are reminiscent of the colour in Nash's The Rye Marshes and the oxblood, navy and black palette that bring to mind his World War One paintings of scarred battlefields.

3:46PM

Polished and preppy on the catwalk at Victoria Beckham 

The first pictures of Victoria Beckham's offering for next winter are in - and it's proving to be a polished aesthetic. Note too, that Beckham is making a strong shout for above the elbow leather gloves to be your new accessory of choice. Apt, some might say, for a city that's been hit by snow this week. 

3:29PM

The Beckham family are front row in their Sunday best

David Beckham has arrived at the Victoria Beckham AW2017 show, bringing the couple’s four children with him to sit on the front row, next to Anna Wintour.

14 year old Romeo led the stylish family into the designer’s 25 Broadway venue, wearing a bright blue suit with a Burberry trench coat and scarf. 11 year-old Cruz also sported a Burberry trench, while five year-old Harper wore Gucci ankle boots with a printed pussy-bow blouse, black skirt and tights, and carried a mini handbag. The couple’s eldest son Brooklyn, 17, wore a baker boy-style cap and tweed blazer - a look sported by his dad on many occasions before.     

3:25PM

"These are clothes for reality, and a real woman’s life," says Victoria of what to expect on the catwalk

“The attitude is of freedom, of confidence, of power. It’s an optimistic outlook," Victoria Beckham has written of the collection on the show notes that are placed on every guest's seat. 

Whilst it's tempting to read into that statement that Beckham is remaining steadfast in what's bound to have been a difficult week for her family in light of those leaked emails, of course the reality is that this collection would have been months in the planning. So what's more likely is that the collection stays true to the message of female empowerment Beckham has long championed.   

Victoria teases that the collection will feature the wide-cut trousers she's come to favour of late, fluid dresses that "have a silhouette that is not body conscious, but conscious of the body" and flat shoes, which are designed to be practical and yet still feminine. 

"These are clothes for reality, and a real woman’s life," is her summary. Sounds like the 2017 spin on Girl Power to us. 

2:55PM

Victoria Beckham hints at her model lineup  

Casting has always been a crucial element for Victoria Beckham ahead of her New York Fashion Week shows, and the A/W 2017 season is no different. In previous years Victoria has discovered and championed new faces such as Maartje Verhoef (whose career she essentially launched when she Instagrammed her ‘favourite model’ in 2015) and Vera Van Erp, and the designer takes a vested interest in personally picking which women she wants to appear in her shows.

Working with esteemed casting director Piergiorgio Del Moro, as well as the stylist Joe McKenna, she usually hires around 30 models per season. Ahead of today’s show the designer has posted a few cryptic clues as to who has made her final cut; firstly with a picture of Nimue Smit from the Netherlands (a former face of Prada) hanging around at her casting session earlier in the week, and also with a blurred video of Grace Bol, a name from the same New York agency who has previously walked for Balmain and Balenciaga.

2:53PM

While we wait for the show to begin, let’s remember where Victoria Beckham’s career as a designer began in the first place

Beckham has come a long way since her original designer offering of just 10 dresses, each ‘contoured to within an inch of its hourglass life’. The Telegraph’s former Fashion Director, Hilary Alexander, reported from Victoria’s debut show back in September 2008.

‘Victoria Beckham has launched her first fashion collection at New York Fashion Week based entirely upon her own personal style,’ she wrote at the time. ‘Esconced in the Royal Suite of the Waldorf Towers, she talked a select group of fashion press through what she called "my dream of a lifetime."

The collection, of just 10 styles, which will cost between £600 and £1,900, is based entirely upon Mrs Beckham's own style and owes more than a little to one of her favourite designers, Roland Mouret, inventor of the 'Galaxy Dress'.

Made in luxury fabrics such as silk organza, silk crepe, gazar, taffeta, wool stretch and fine cottons, in a subdued colour palette of black, navy, cream, cobalt and flesh-tone, each dress is cut, seamed and contoured to within an inch of its hourglass life and features a long pink-gilt zip snaking straight down the centre-back seam.

Interior corsetry, grosgrain waistbands, shoulder pads and ingenious 'nips and tucks' in the bust, waist and hip area, ensure that, as the fledgling designer puts it "every woman who wears these dresses can have great posture and look great from every angle."

The dresses, in sizes 6-14, would be suitable for all ages, she said, singling out Nigella Lawson and Dame Helen Mirren as ideal customers.

Overall, the collection has a surprisingly modest, almost prim attitude with all hemlines ending at least three inches below the knee and some of the bow-neck, blouse-bodices having an almost governess feel.

But, as Mrs Beckham explained, these styles could always look more sexy with the bow undone, "like David (Beckham) undoing his bow-tie at the end of an evening."

The collection is being made in London with a small atelier staff of less than five people.

Only 400 examples of the entire collection will be sold worldwide and will be available from February.

"I know I have a lot to learn, but over the years I think I have worked out how women want to look," she said. She described her inspiration as coming from all the designers whose clothes she had ever worn, coupled with a love of 40's and 50's styles and a desire to be comfortable.’

Not a bad start for a woman who ended up turning that line of 10 dresses into a £34 million fashion business....

Victoria Beckham - the brand through the years

2:44PM

The new bag offering from Victoria Beckham? A vintage-inspired vanity bag

The woman who famously has over 100 Hermes Birkin bags knows a thing or two about creating an ‘It bag.’ Victoria’s offering for AW17? A vanity case shaped bag, inspired by her recent make-up collaboration with Estee Lauder.

The designer teamed up with beauty behemoth Estee Lauder last year to create a 14 piece strong line of make-up based around four signature looks that sum up London, Los Angeles, New York and Paris. At the time, Victoria said it was based on make-up she had collected and stored since she was eighteen. There were ‘tiny, tiny little worn-down samples, and little eyeshadows I’d mixed myself,’ she told US Vogue.

Last week, the make-up addict revealed she was continuing the collaboration with Estee Lauder - reintroduced several of the original products, including the radiance-boosting Morning Aura Illuminating Creme and highly pigmented Eye Foils, and adding two more. A new lipstick in Nude Spice and a lighter shade of bronzer in Saffron Sun will form part of the new collection, which was used in today’s show and launches globally on Friday 17 February.

So perhaps it’s no surprise that Victoria felt she needed a suitably chic bag to store it all?  

Every single product from the Victoria Beckham X Estee Lauder collection

2:30PM

How will the collection have evolved from last season’s laid back, louche affair? 

“It’s effortless, and everything is quite thrown on,” Victoria Beckham told us backstage last season of her SS17 collection.

For spring, Victoria was urging her customers to adopt washed silk dresses featured bodice detailing, along with soft pleated skirts that felt altogether looser, and more fluid. Navy and copper hued satin tailored suits were relaxed, the jackets carry no fastenings, except trailing ties.

Every single look from Victoria Beckhams SS17 collection

At the time Beckham said it was all about “taking traditional fabrics - velvet, lace, leather, washed silk and satin - and treating them to make them feel newer, fresher and relevant.” And she’s certainly done just that. The crushed velvet suits and cocktail dresses are one of the reasons you’ve seen a resurgence of the 80’s-favourite fabric in stores of late.

So, even if it is snowing outside, it’s worth revisiting the SS17 Victoria Beckham collection in full - of all which is just starting to hit the stores now.

2:19PM

Victoria’s been using the pavement as her catwalk as she’s put the final touches to her collection together in New York 

After more than 20 years in the spotlight, Beckham has learnt that her best marketing tool is herself. Victoria  now makes sure that the paparazzi shots of her that are beamed worldwide feature her wearing some of her best designs. This week has been a prime example of that.

As she’s battled New York blizzards and a furore over her husband’s leaked emails, she’s ensured that each time she leaves her hotel she’s pictured wearing a key piece from her eponymous fashion line - whether it’s a £1595 half moon bag paired with mannish trousers or the £580 Pin Pumps, currently available to pre-order on her e-commerce website.

It certainly shows she’s come a long way since the Miss Selfridge little black dress that characterised Posh Spice….

Victoria Beckham style evolution

2:17PM

Victoria's kids send their mum a good luck message - as David distracts them in New York City 

Victoria Beckham just posted a picture of a huge floral bouquet on her Instagram, complete with a handwritten note wishing her luck from kids Brooklyn (17), Romeo (14), Cruz (11) and Harper (5). The Beckham-clan have always shown their support by sending Victoria drawings, flowers and letters before the show - but only all attend the designer’s New York show in February, when the children are on their half term holidays from their UK-based schools.

So far husband David has been on duty entertaining the couple’s four children, as Victoria puts the finishing touches to her collection. On Saturday he took to the Natural History Museum for the day before heading to Brooklyn pizzeria Lucali for dinner. The 41 year-old posted pictures and videos from the day on his Instagram account, including shots of Harper in the museum’s Butterfly Room, and Cruz having a go at making his own pizza.