FashionLondon EDIT
But her pop ambitions ran parallel to hopes
of a future in fashion. “I dreamed of doing
my own clothing line even before I was a
Spice Girl,” Victoria reveals. “Even though I
loved every minute of my life as a Spice Girl,
fashion is my passion, not music,” she says,
and after the group split in 2000, Victoria
has steered herself toward Prada and Dior,
carving out an image that made headlines
across the world. Her Roberto Cavalli blue
and white Ming vase-inspired gown, worn
to Elton John’s annual White Tie and Tiara
Ball in 2005, made international front pages,
and the variation of her trademark LBD dress
she wore to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’
wedding in 2006 – an embellished black
number complete with bow and a statement
black fascinator to rival Pharrell’s now
infamous Buffalo hat – got heads turning.
Marc Jacobs and Roland Mouret became
her go-to designers through the 2000s,
alongside Giambattista Valli and Oscar de la
Renta, as her personal style became infinitely
more sophisticated. These days, of course,
she’s likely to choose items from her own
collections. Sitting FROW next to gal-pal
Vogue editor in Chief Anna Wintour, it’s
now her own designs taking centre stage,
with her celebrity friends, including Eva
Longaria, Gwyneth Paltrow regularly being
papped in her creations; Kim Sears even
chose to wear a mint green Victoria Beckham
number on the day Andy Murray claimed
Wimbledon victory in 2013.
Victoria’s contemporary designs reflect her
own sleek, minimalist tastes, and while it’s
a look removed from the glitz of her Spice
Girls days, she can see the similarities
between her two vocations: “The Spice
Girls were successful because we celebrated
women,” she says. “That’s why I do what
I want today. I want to be able to create
beautiful and interesting clothes and other
accessories for women... I want to get bigger
and bigger - I absolutely want an empire.”
“I absolutely want
an empire”
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With time and hard work (she balances
family life with the demands of liasing
with her design studio across continents),
Victoria has managed to shrug off the WAG
title she gained upon tying the knot with
David ‘Golden Balls’ Beckham in 1999.
She’s tallied up the column inches, but while
critics and gossip mags had expected her
fashion venture to fall flat, her collections
earned her 38 million Euros last year. Many
celebrities have tried their hand at a fashion
line with varying degrees of success: Jessica
Simpson has cornered the commercial end
of the market with her shoes, while Jay Z’s
Rocawear urban-lifestyle clothing brand
redefined hip hop street wear. Kanye West is
the first male musician to break into women’s
couture, reportedly wor