Women of the year 2024: Victoria Beckham

Beckham gets a haircut. It’s looking particularly wash’n’go casual on the morning we meet in her family’s London home. There’s a hint of make-up to enhance a healthy glow. Fifty looks good on her. She parks herself, cross-legged, in front of the fireplace in the substantial living-room. She’s barefoot because she hasn’t found shoes to suit the rather special Alaïa jeans she’s wearing, Alaïa and Balenciaga being the only exceptions she allows to the wear-her-own-brand rule. Despite it being another dreary day of this year’s misbegotten summer, it’s not noticeably chilly, but there’s a fire burning in the grate. David likes a fire in this room.

Victoria’s humour is as dry as ever. “When my trainer says to me in the morning, ‘Have you had your carbs?’ I say, ‘Well, I had half a bottle of sake that was unfiltered, which basically means there’s a bit of rice in it.’” Such drollery bodes well for the docuseries she’s two days into shooting for Netflix; an obvious successor to the wildly successful, Emmy-winning show that focused on her husband. She reels off the production schedule. “They’ll come to Paris to cover the show and the lead-up. Then they’ll follow me to LA, because I have beauty work to do over there, and then to New York, where I’m doing some things for the CFDA [Council of Fashion Designers of America]. Then Miami with the beauty team, and next year, to Grasse in Provence, creating the next fragrance.”The emphasis is clearly different from the access-all-areas-ish aspect that made her husband’s four-part documentary such a streaming smash. “It’s slightly more targeted on the entrepreneur, the designer of the brand,” Victoria confirms. “It’s not going to be as personal. I realise that I am a bit of a travelling circus, even when I’m at work, but this is very fashion-focused. And, obviously, there’ll be elements of the kids, you know – Harper’s going to come in on Monday and do her fitting for the show. So they’ll film that. But it’s really shining a light on the business, especially for America. That’s the main reason for doing this.”

About that business… It’s almost two decades since Victoria debuted her fashion line, premiering a slick, tailored, contemporary aesthetic in New York. The acclaim wasn’t exactly universal, but the way she launched, personally talking key fashion-media outlets through her collection, underscored her level of engagement. There was something charming in her approach, as if she was testing the waters, eager to learn from experts. It’s been that way ever since. Victoria explored beauty products via two best-selling capsule collections with Estée Lauder before she launched her own range in 2019. At some point, knowledge becomes wisdom, and she has grown wise in the ways of fashion and beauty.And of her media presence, too. Although, even if Victoria’s always included the children in her evolving story, she sounds almost surprised that they didn’t have more questions after David’s programme aired. “It was funny, actually,” she reflects. “Cruz was like, ‘I didn’t realize that Dad was so good at football.’ You forget it was a long time ago. They were always at the games, but they were really little, and too young to understand.” Brooklyn did ask, however, about the most viral moment in the show, the Rolls-Royce school-run scene. He wondered who came up with the idea and how many takes they did. Mum took mild offence. “David was in the other room watching the monitor, and then he put his head in the door. It was not rehearsed. Like the dancing in the tent. None of it was rehearsed.”

Even the hard-to-watch retread of their dad’s very public pillorying after the 1998 World Cup didn’t elicit much comment from the children. “I mean, when it happened, David was the same age that Romeo is now,” says Victoria. “That’s a lot for a 22-year-old. When you’re in it, there’s that sink-or-swim feeling, and you just get on with it. And we had each other, and the rest is history. But the thought of my Romeo having to go through it… I don’t know how he would handle that. I don’t know how anyone would handle that. But we didn’t have a choice.”