Victoria Beckham might have some competition on her hands. Ahead of her AW23 show unveiled in Paris this evening, her daughter Harper designed her own trouser suit to wear for the occasion. “She had a very clear vision,” said Beckham at a preview before the show this morning.
Family was one of the subplots of her new collection. Beckham was inspired by Grey Gardens, the 1975 documentary following the two eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy: Edith and Edie Bouvier Beale. A clue before the show; Beckham had recruited her old friend Drew Barrymore (who played Little Edie in the film biopic).
The collection had in her words a “magnetic sense of oddness.” That translated into deliberately strange, surreal touches like the croc embossed trouser-boots, the softly exaggerated proportions and shoes and necklaces adorned with acrylic hair extensions; a nod to the work of Brazilian artist Solange Pessoa.
Beckham once inhabited a different type of hair-extension glamour to the art-inflected elegance she does today. But, like The Row, her brand has long surpassed its tabloid origins story. Her strength is, well, her. “Everything I do will always have an element of reality, but it is about dreaming,” she said. “It always starts with what I desire myself.” She added that the “poor design team quite often have me semi naked trying on the clothes” and that she likes to ‘road test’ everything, including the platform show shoes she was sporting this morning (they had survived the ‘up and down the Eurostar’ test she reported).
Indeed, it’s not a stretch to imagine Mrs. B in the resin-coated denim, the feather printed jersey dresses, a particularly sumptuous white alpaca skirt suit or any of the shoulder padded, deconstructed tailoring she proposed today. But the appeal of those pieces extends far beyond the 1 per cent world she occupies. Testament to that David Belhassen, founder of NEO Investment Partners, today told WWD that revenue rose 42 percent to £58 million last year, with more double-digit growth to come. “I feel great. I’ve got an amazing team. An amazing CEO. It’s an exciting time,” she said.
Paris suits Beckham. She’s found her groove, one that majors in clothes that are impactful yet easy to wear. They impart the elegance and substance of a woman who truly knows herself. And it’s nice to see that flash of levity, of oddness; there is a comfort and confidence that comes with age. She doesn’t have to worry about Harper coming for her crown just yet.
