If 2023 was the year of the hot milf summer, Victoria Beckham won first prize. No one jet-sets better. To flick through her avidly updated Instagram over the past months is to catapult vicariously to fashion shows in Versailles, jet-skiing in Muskoka, cowboy boot shopping in Nashville, a flit through Florida’s Disney World (niche, but okay) and late August sunset snogging with her husband in Dubrovnik.
But it was ceaseless trips to and from Miami to watch David’s Inter Miami football team win the Leagues Cup that bagged her the trophy. For those looking in, it basically looked like a bi-weekly booze-fuelled romp through every boujie sushi shop the city has to offer — with Lionel Messi in tow. ‘I still like to have fun and I still like to have a drink,’ she says. It also ushered in a new wag set: Kim Kardashian and Nicole Kidman included. ‘We have lots of really great friends there,’ she says. ‘It’s so exciting right now with everything that’s going on with Messi and the football club. I’m just so proud. You know, David has worked relentlessly on this club.’
How does she find the time? ‘When Harper has time off school we love to go. School holidays, summer holidays, because we love to be there to support David and watch the games. It feels like the start of a new chapter.’ It helps that the packing is simple: ‘I don’t wear fashion when I’m in Miami, so I don’t have to take too much. Less is definitely more there.’
Travelling, it transpires, has always been at the heart of her romantic relationship. So much so, she has dedicated a new range of perfumes — eight years in the making, and which she sees as ‘my autobiography, I’m just telling it through scent’ — to their most romantic destinations. She dives into the tale of their 1997 trips, when a Spice Girl met a footballer and their relationship had to stay secret.
‘We went from [meeting in] the City Limits car park — and it gets even better — in Epping. The Hotel Splendido in Portofino was the first trip we went on outside of the car park,’ she says. ‘I know, it makes it sound like we’re really dodgy.’
The latter was a 48-hour Italian whirlwind that cemented their relationship. ‘We’d already fallen in love before then, but it was definitely the first time that we’d been somewhere so romantic and so private. Not a lot of people knew that we were dating. We were trying to keep things under wraps and avoid paparazzi as much as we could.’ Naturally, this translates as no commercial flights. ‘We got a private plane. It’s the first time that we’d been on a plane together like that. I mean, it really was many firsts for the two of us.’
With both at the height of their fame, any ambiguity quickly disappeared. They were engaged by January 1998. ‘In the 1990s we would disappear, just the two of us, to Paris, and everything felt very opulent. I was wearing lots of Dolce & Gabbana, we would stay at Hotel Costes or The Ritz.’ She becomes audibly lost in hedonistic memories. ‘I remember the heavy, burgundy velvet drapes and how dark the rooms were, how sexy the rooms were… but it was the 1990s, everywhere that we went we were followed by lots of paparazzi. That was just life as we knew it.’
The pair now spend plenty of time in Paris, their ‘happy place’, and she has improved on her incognito game. ‘A flat pair of shoes and a baseball cap. Not sort of tottering about in high heels. And I ask David to refrain from wearing a football shirt.’ She has a favourite memory, too: ‘We renewed our wedding vows [in 2017], and we sneaked off to Paris for a 24-hour honeymoon. We stayed in the Coco Chanel suite in the Ritz.’
A lifetime of zipping about must be disorientating. ‘I do really believe in crystal energy,’ she says of what helps. Wellness was a world she immersed herself in when the family moved to Los Angeles — San Ysidro Drive, to be exact — in 2007. ‘I’ll always have some black tourmaline to keep out any negative energy. I really like the pink crystals for feminine energy. And I have that purple one, what’s that called?’ Amethyst? ‘Yeah.’
Hot milf summer is now over, however, and it’s time for Boss Beckham to return. She’s had lots on her plate: a perfume launch, her SS24 collection to show in Paris and a tell-all Netflix documentary landing this Wednesday. ‘The documentary’s great. They’ve got footage of me telling David when I was pregnant. I didn’t know that existed!’
She admits, these days she is opening up more than ever. ‘People know about me and David, and they feel that they’ve almost been part of our relationship over the years. They remember us meeting when I was with the Spice Girls and he was a footballer. They remember when we had all of the children,’ she says. ‘But, you know… I’ve never really told such detailed stories. It’s never felt right.’ Until now, that is…
Pack up your life
VB’s absolute can’t-get-on-the plane without travel essentials
Tourmaline Black natural crystal, £30, venusrox.com
Victoria Beckham Beauty, Portofino ’97, from £170, victoriabeckhambeauty.com
Reebox x Victoria Beckham Baseball Cap, £57, harrods.com
