Victoria Beckham Partners With Breitling
The designer discusses watchmaking, why she's not ready for her own documentary and her business ambitions.
LONDON — Watches have become a common thread in Victoria Beckham's life ever since her husband, David Beckham, gifted her one.
The designer has since drawn inspiration from the hardware details found on men's watch straps for her spring 2022 collection. Now she's partnering with Breitling on a limited-edition collection to reimagine the brand's Chronomat Automatic 36 watch.
“I do love to collaborate with the best and you can see that's what I've done with my beauty brand, specifically, when I go into something that is so specific like watchmaking, that's not something that I would have known to do myself,” Beckham candidly admitted in an interview.
She has added a gentle touch to the watches, which are available in stainless steel and 18-karat yellow gold with peppermint, midnight blue, dove gray and sand faces. All the watches feature the Breitling logo with Beckham's initials, VB on the second hand. The designer's brand logo is engraved on the case back and on the band.
“I'm very lucky that David has bought me my watches and they always symbolize a birthday or an anniversary. He bought me a beautiful watch when I got my OBE and quite often he gets them engraved,” Beckham said.
She wanted to keep the chunky masculine style Breitling's watches are known for without overpowering the collaboration.
“I love watches and have collected them for some time. I love how they're all about effortless, everyday elegance, which feels very in line with my brand, my DNA and ethos,” the designer said.
Georges Kern, chief executive officer of Breitling, said working with Beckham on the project was a natural fit as the brand targets its female customers.
“The women's market is more important than ever. The reason we approached Victoria Beckham is that her brand shares the same ideals of quiet luxury and understated elegance, wearable in every facet of life,” he said.
Women's watches account for about 12 percent of Breitling's revenue, a number Kern wants to raise to 30 percent.
Despite the ongoing luxury slowdown, Breitling is consciously picking and choosing how to maneuver the current changes in luxury.
“Our collaborations expand our savoirfaire but also help us in reaching new audiences. With the collaboration with Victoria Beckham, Breitling will tap into the world of fashion, something not every watch brand could do. Her relevance within the fashion industry enables us to speak to fashion-savvy women, while simultaneously reaching a broader female audience,” Kern said.
The Beckhams have seen the challenges of lockdown fade in the rear view mirror, as sales and profits at the Beckham family brands roaring ahead in fiscal 2022.
The couple's various companies had a prosperous year, according to accounts filed on Companies House, the British government's business register.
As reported earlier in 2023, Victoria's fashion and beauty brand turned a modest profit at the earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, level for the first time. David's main holding company, David Beckham Ventures Ltd., posted a 30 percent uptick in profits to 25.5 million pounds.
The Netflix documentary series “Beckham,” which premiered last year, chronicling the rise of the soccer star and his family, was a hit, racking up more than 12.4 million total views.
The designer is not ready to be in front of a television camera again for the foreseeable future despite headlines in the British tabloids suggesting otherwise.
“Right now is not the time for me to
do that — not with my fashion and beauty business being in the position it is in now, which having worked for so many years feels very exciting. I feel that I built the foundation, both fashion and beauty, now I can really start building the house and my focus is solely on that,” Beckham said.
“I'm just scratching the surface [business wise]. So I would never say never about another documentary,” she added.