Victoria Beckham is towering above the Manhattan skyline, so high up you might mistake her for a brunette Fay Wray in extremely high heels. The Chrysler Building looms behind her like a bodyguard; the East River glints in the distance. Forever her best model, Beckham is wearing her own design, a sage green blazer with a charmingly off-kilter inside-out detail on the collar. Her lob is immaculate, and her hairdresser, Ken Paves, is waiting in the wings should a flyaway rear its head. She’s here at the pinnacle of midtown (literally, 55 stories up) to introduce New York’s boldface names to her pre-spring 2026 fashion collection, and the receiving line of big-name editors greeting her is longer than the one for most brides.
Beckham knows something about drawing an audience. First, she became one of the biggest pop icons in the world. Then she and her soccer-star husband achieved power-couple status, helping bring the term WAG into the cultural consciousness along the way. Still, when she reinvented herself as a fashion designer in 2008, the industry maintained a certain skepticism about celebrities who dared cross over to Seventh Avenue. There were upturned noses in some corners. (“No one,” she says, “is more aware of that than me.”)
So she kept her head down and focused on what she was doing, not on what she calls “the noise.” That’s why, 17 years and a feline allotment of lives later, her line is still around when so many have foundered. It has evolved along with her, from the formfitting dresses she became known for to the impeccably tailored office looks and gathered gowns on show today.
“It’s been such a journey,” she admits, sitting down to chat in a private room, a steady stream of berry LaCroix being ferried her way. “My business has been through so much. And it’s all been very public. Being the celebrity who is the brand is a double-edged sword.”
Coat, skirt, pumps, Tom Ford. Tights, Calzedonia.
Which brings us to her latest role: documentary subject. Beckham was arguably the breakout star of the 2023 Netflix documentary about her husband David. She went viral for a much-memed exchange with him where she insisted she grew up working class while admitting her dad drove a Rolls-Royce—as well as a scene where the two cut a rug to “Islands in the Stream.” Now she’ll be coming to streaming once again, this time in a Netflix documentary about, well, herself. The three-part series—directed by Nadia Hallgren, who helmed the Emmy-nominated Michelle Obama documentary Becoming—follows Beckham’s arc from pop star to designer and entrepreneur, and shadows her as she prepares to show her spring 2025 collection at Paris Fashion Week. The documentary also touches on what drove her to become a performer, how she navigated misogynistic commentary from the tabloids and the “WAG” label that was affixed to her after she and David got together, and how she found her footing in the fashion industry.
Coat, skirt, Tom Ford. Tights, Calzedonia.
She didn’t initially want to do it, telling me that David eventually convinced her to. “I genuinely couldn’t understand why anybody was that interested. I love what I do, but I was a bit shocked,” she says. “But throughout the process, I’ve really enjoyed it. I love the fact that I have an opportunity to shine a light on our industry—how serious an industry it is.”
It also lets her, as she says, “reflect on the journey, and talk a little bit about the career I had before, without it being to the detriment of my brand.” After all, “I was in the Spice Girls for four years, and I’ve been so defined by that period. I’ve been in the fashion industry for almost two decades.”
A self-described control freak, Beckham has had to cede to the whims of the cutting room, which she has ultimately found “quite liberating,” she says. “I had to leave my vanity at the door, because every time they were following me at work, I had a job to do. I couldn’t think about the fact there were cameras there, because I was preparing for a show. One minute we’re creating the collection, picking the fabrics, casting the models. ‘Is this the right flooring? What’s the show music like?’ There was so much going on that I had to turn a blind eye to the fact that they were there. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten anything done. I was like, ‘Guys, I’ve got a day job to be getting on with.’”
Coat, Loewe. Watch, Van Cleef & Arpels. Heels, Christen.
Whether the documentary will inspire any more viral moments remains to be seen. “Oh God, the Rolls-Royce?” she laughs. “Even one of our children said, ‘How many times did you film that?’ We were like, ‘No, no. It wasn’t rehearsed.’” The dance was real, too: “That’s what the Beckhams do. We like to have fun. We like to spend time all together. We’re a very traditional family, much more than I think people would realize,” a sentiment that contrasts with any recent tabloid speculation about friction. When I mention that I used to love seeing David and their four children—who now range in age from 14 to 26—front row at her London Fashion Week shows (she now shows in Paris), she says, “That’s what we do. We all support each other. We always show up for each other.”
How traditional are we talking? “I’ve always tried to be the best mom and wife that I can be,” she says, sticking to a 6 P.M. family dinnertime throughout their childhoods, even if that meant heading back to the office afterward. Demonstrating that work ethic to her children is important. “After my last show, I remember so vividly the kids and David coming backstage. I had just come off of my exit. And the looks on their faces when they approached me—it was a real pinch-me moment, because I saw how proud they were.” Her philosophy has always been, “It’s healthy that the children know Daddy goes to work, and Mommy goes to work. Working makes me the best version of me.”
Blazer, bodysuit, Victoria Beckham. Tights, Calzedonia. Pumps, Christen.
Dress, Dolce & Gabbana. Bra, Fleur du Mal. Ring, Cartier.
She and David have been together for 28 years, and she credits their longevity to the fact that they’ve grown alongside each other. “So often in relationships, one will say to the other, ‘You’ve changed.’ Well, of course you’ve changed! You’re a different person when you’re 20 than when you’re 50,” she says. “He believed in me when a lot of people didn’t. He invested in me. At times I’ve been a laughingstock, people not taking my business seriously, but he always believed in me.”
It might be hard to imagine that someone this symmetrical could ever consider herself an underdog, but Beckham does. When telling me about the latest category for her beauty brand (complexion), she confesses that she struggled with acne from a young age. “My skin was so bad at one point, I remember my mother’s friend saying to me, ‘You couldn’t even put a pin between [the pimples],’” she says. “When I was younger, I was so self-conscious because of my skin. I didn’t even want to look people in the eye. It really affected my confidence. It can make you quite depressed.”
Jacket, bodysuit, skirt, Victoria Beckham. Watch, Van Cleef & Arpels. Heels, Christen.
When she reinvented herself in her 20s as the unshakably confident Posh Spice, she was more a fan of designer clothes than she was a customer. “I couldn’t afford to buy them, but I had a respect for, and an interest in, luxury,” she says, adding, “By the way, the ‘little Gucci dress’ was never a little Gucci dress. It was from a high street store, and I said it was a Gucci dress,” because she was such a fan of Tom Ford’s work at the time. (He’s now, of course, a friend.)
She founded her beauty line in 2019. Today, she sells an eyeliner every 30 seconds. “People used to stop me on the street and talk to me about being in the Spice Girls,” she says. “Now, every day, people talk to me about the eyeliners.”
Dress, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello.
Beckham’s social media beauty tutorials have become a hit. People think “there’s quite a big production that goes on behind those videos. And it is…me,” she admits. “I only recently got a tripod, because people were wondering why I was only showing one side of my face. Reason being, I’m holding the camera, I’m talking, and I’m using this hand to actually do the makeup!” she says, waving her hand frantically. She adds, somewhat unbelievably, that she doesn’t even own a ring light.
Social media has been a boon when it comes to defrosting her once-chilly image. Back in the ’90s, “there were paparazzi shots and the narratives the media was telling.” Now, people get to see the real, unmediated Victoria. “I would read those stories, and I would see those pictures of me looking quite grumpy. But there’s very much a different person inside. I think that’s another reason why David was keen for me to do the documentary, to show that. I mean, I gave up worrying what people thought about me a long, long time ago. But I love using social media to have fun, and also to explain the ‘why’ in regard to my brand.”
She’s also poked fun at herself via fashion, with slogan T-shirts like the one that says, “Fashion stole my smile.” “Fashion never stole my smile,” she says now. Then, to her publicist: “I should do a new T-shirt. Can you remind me? ‘Fashion made me smile.’ I feel very content.”
Coat, Loewe. Watch, Van Cleef & Arpels. Heels, Christen.
Contentment may not be what fuels the tabloid machine, but it feels great. And Beckham has never seemed so confident. Amid so much industry turmoil and so many ups and downs for her brand, her business is profitable, she tells me proudly. (As a privately held company, it does not report results.) Many designers get to go through those challenges outside the spotlight, but “when my name is on the label, then that is news,” she says. “There were rumors right at the beginning: Was this a vanity project, was my husband bailing me out?…That wasn’t about opinion. That was fact. My business was struggling.” It’s something she discusses in the upcoming documentary. “I suppose I have really opened myself up for the first time, and there’s a vulnerability there. I’ve got two more days left of filming, and then my job’s done. Over to the editor.”
A past Victoria might not have been so easygoing, but “getting older is—actually, there’s a side of it that’s really great. The filter comes off, and you give a shit less. I’m really enjoying that,” she says. In fact, she tells me slyly, when she shot her last ELLE cover back in 2009, the powers that be at the time almost deemed her too old to appear. She was then in her 30s. Now, at 51 and several lifetimes later, she’s back on the front page.
Coat, Alaïa. Gloves, Khaite.
Lead image credit: Coat, top, skirt, Alaïa. Gloves, Khaite.
Hair by Ken Paves at Rouge Artists; makeup by Yumi Lee and Francesca Abrahamovitch for Victoria Beckham Beauty; manicure by Rica Romain at LMC Worldwide; set design by Jacob Burstein for MHS Artists; produced by Sarah Maxwell at PRODn.
A version of this story appears in the October 2025 issue of ELLE.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.elle.com ’
