Posh Spice and all things nice (with thanks to one little girl)
Victoria Beckham reveals her six-year-old daughter Harper Seven as a key influence on her offering at New York Fashion Week, proving there’s still room for a bit of sparkle
VICTORIA BECKHAM showed her latest collection at New York Fashion Week yesterday, and although she might have become renowned for her minimalist tendencies, she showed that even she is still unable to resist a little sparkle every now and again – and it might have something to do with Harper Seven, her six-year-old daughter.
“There’s a little red crystal slipper, which, when I was showing Harper the shoes yesterday when we were on Facetime, she was like, ‘Oh my goodness, I’ve got to have those shoes!’” Beckham said ahead of the show displaying her new collection.
“You can tell that I’ve got a little girl, when you look at those.
“I’d wear these with a pair of jeans,” she added, gesturing to a pair of modern-day Cinderella silver stilettos.
Beckham laughed as she recalled a model unable to get them onto her feet in fittings, just as in the fairytale. And in blue? “Frozen,” she quipped, as a mother would.
Rather than pairing the Cinderella shoes with party dresses, though, Beckham used them to elevate the more casual looks in the collection – wide leg trousers and boxy jackets – which is now in its ninth year.
Despite the logistical juggling, spending summer “in LA with David and the kids, back and forth from London working on the collection”, Beckham is very much at home in New York, particularly now that her eldest son Brooklyn has just moved to the city to study photography at Parsons School of Design.
“He called me up and said ‘I don’t feel well’; I was like, ‘Mummy will be there in ten minutes!’” she said.
The young photographer turned out to support his mother, sitting alongside David Beckham and taking pictures on his phone, with the camera worn around his neck. The younger Beckham siblings – Romeo, 15 Cruz, 12 and Harper – remained in London for school.
This season, Beckham’s silhouettes are less oversized, fitting much closer to the body. Prints reference everything from the ripples in moire silk to the gridded graph paper that she remembers from maths lessons at school. The colours, too, are unusual, and rendered even more so by their combinations: spearmint green silk skirts and red dresses worn with purple leather court shoes, sherbet pink against salmon.
“Recently I’ve been wearing a lot more colour myself. It’s finding a new take on colour, and that’s why I love these, whether you want to call them play doh, sherbet or ice cream colours – but they’re not too sugary and they’re not too sweet.”
Beckham certainly designs her collections for herself to some extent. “There is nothing here that I wouldn’t
‘There’s a red crystal slipper which, when I was showing Harper yesterday, she was like “Oh my goodness, I’ve got to have those shoes”’
‘It’s not about creating show pieces that are not wearable. That’s not how I believe women want to dress’
wear myself ”, she says. “It’s not about creating show pieces that are not wearable. That’s not how I want to dress and it’s not how I believe women want to dress.”
“I believe you really should be able to wear things from the catwalk. I want to feel comfortable”.
At the end of the show, Beckham took her designer’s bow wearing one of the simple white T-shirts that she has been wearing all week as she has been photographed around New York.
“You can look feminine, and it can still feel easy. That doesn’t mean that you have to feel constricted; things like [the waist belts] are just so easy, so comfortable, but still feminine at the same time. But there’s still a slight boyish influence, there’s a slight utilitarian feel.”
There were light layers included too, inspired by Beckham’s own, sometimes gruelling, travel schedule.
“If I get on a plane in London and get off in LA, I can layer up but I can also take off, and everything feels a little more transeasonal.”
Beckham’s collection is not all practicality, though. The green stone earrings and ankle chains add a level of embellishment that she usually avoids.
“The clothes aren’t overly complicated. They’re beautifully made, and the techniques are very interesting, but there’s something quite minimal about the clothes; so it’s fun to then do something I haven’t done before – it feels like a new way of wearing jewellery. I don’t wear a lot of jewellery, but it’s not expensive, it’s fun.”