She became famous as a Spice Girl and infamous as a footballer’s wife. At 50, the former noughties trash queen Victoria Beckham is at the peak of her career – as a fashion and pop culture cult personality.
The number 50 is never spoken. In a recently published “Vogue” video interview with Victoria Beckham there is talk of “many candles on the cake”, of the prospect of life as a grandmother and of personal “secrets” when getting older: “Work hard, have fun and enjoy the journey.” It is not exactly stated that Posh Spice will be 50 years old on April 17, 2024. Maybe because Victoria Beckham decided that was the rule for this interview – she doesn’t seem like someone who likes to talk about birthdays. But maybe also because no one who grew up with the Spice Girls can or wants to believe that Posh Spice has actually been strolling through life in high heels for half a century.
Victoria Beckham has gone through so many different personal eras that it would be enough for two, if not three, lifetimes. 90s pop culture legend. Fashion icon of the noughties low-rise jeans era. Great mother of all footballer wives. Designer with a hard-earned reputation in the high fashion scene. Recently the social media darling of Generation Z, who digs up old video clips and shares them on TikTok (“Victoria Beckham is a mood”). Victoria Beckham has been reinventing herself for decades, sometimes with the spirit of the times, sometimes against it. A marathon life in the public eye. You have to want to – and be able to.
Victoria Beckham, born Victoria Adams in Essex, east of London, in 1974, demonstrated stubbornness and determination at an early age. As a teenager, she decided she wanted to be a pop star; Her parents, who had become wealthy through an electronics business, enrolled her at a theater school. The breakthrough came in 1996 with the girl group Spice Girls. Victoria could only sing mediocrely, and she certainly didn’t take on the most important parts and solos during the Spice Girl era. With the nickname Posh Spice, she was seen as the fashionable elitist among her colleagues, who liked to show the girl power victory sign into the camera in skin-tight designer mini dresses. Victoria, the style-conscious: An image that would later make it easier for her to assert herself alongside midfield star David Beckham in the glittering world of the European footballer’s wife jet set – and, again a few years later, to credibly enter the designer field change.
Grand entrance at the wedding of Prince William and Kate
Of course, the start there wasn’t easy. After ridiculed forays into celebrity fashion – remember the jeans embroidered with the crown logo that she designed for the American denim brand Rock & Republic in the early noughties – she started her own label Victoria Beckham in 2008. Although it has already been on the ropes several times economically, it has, like so many fashion brands, been staying afloat for years with a successful cosmetics line; and yet the distinctively cut dresses by “Victoria Beckham” have earned the namesake a reputation as a serious designer over the years. Probably her most effective advertising appearance for her own designs: in 2011, she appeared at the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, heavily pregnant, in ultra-high heels and a flowing dark blue robe at Westminster Abbey.
From the pop girlie in a miniskirt to the blonde-streaked footballer’s wife who dresses her husband in a leather jacket partner look. From resourceful businesswoman to benevolent celebrity matriarch (the Beckhams have four grown children, all of whom are more or less in the international gossip columns): Victoria Beckham knows the art of constantly giving her life new twists, but always keeping herself to remain so faithful that every new step contributes to the overall media work of art.
Victoria Beckham in 2007. Her bob became a global trend at the time.
© Mark Thompson/Getty Images
Because the reserved, somewhat vain persona that she presents in public has always remained the same. Victoria Beckham doesn’t smile. Victoria Beckham only eats vegetables and steamed fish to maintain her slim figure. Victoria Beckham likes to wear high heels if it suits her outfit. Victoria Beckham doesn’t chill on sofas, but instead drapes herself uncomfortably on the sides like in an impressionist painting. And Victoria Beckham speaks of herself in the third person when she thinks this little mannerism is good for her personal brand – like in one she published herself Youtube video (“Victoria Beckham has a dog. Victoria Beckham wears a foundation she developed herself”). There can only be one Victoria Beckham, and it doesn’t hurt to keep reminding us of that.
Part of Victoria Beckham’s charm is that she can follow up with a self-deprecating joke at just the right moment when the “VB” production threatens to slip too far into the affected. Currently, for example, working with her husband for the shopping service Uber Eats. She wears a T-shirt that says “David’s Wife” and can’t remember the name of her band: “Wasn’t it Cinnamon Sisters?”
Victoria and David enjoy status as living legends
In little moments like this, the Beckhams like to hint that they themselves can’t believe how they ended up where they are in life. Both seem to enjoy status as living English legends (both belong to the Order of the British Empire) while at the same time believing themselves to be “ordinary” people. In a viral scene from the 2023 Netflix documentary “Beckham,” Victoria claims to be from the “working class” – until David asks her to say which car her father drove her to school in. It was a Rolls Royce. But of course: from today’s perspective as a superstar, growing up well-off in rural England may seem like an average childhood to her – which, from her point of view, probably shaped her drive to want to achieve something in life.
Victoria and David Beckham at the premiere of their Netflix documentary 2023 in London
© Ian West/PA via AP
And Victoria Beckham has achieved a lot. The fact that she doesn’t take things easy, but simply sets herself new goals and is hardworking, is well received by the current audience. Now, at 50, she is experiencing a form of public recognition for her life’s work that seemed unimaginable 20 years ago when people made fun of her exalted looks, her thin, tanned body and her loyalty to David following affair rumors. She gives a birthday interview in the most important fashion magazines, shows a collection in Paris, where, as Karl Lagerfeld said, not everyone gets there so quickly, and advertises her fashion in the British Sunday newspaper “The Sunday Times”.
Victoria Beckham is everywhere and she is iconic. Suddenly their crazy noughties looks are cool again, even the crown jeans are being auctioned off in the vintage market for hundreds of euros. Ambitious as she is, Beckham knows how to use the momentum for herself and is currently launching an affordable collection for the Spanish fashion chain Mango. A bit of VB flair for everyone.