‘I’m just goIng to put it out there now,’ Victoria Beckhamwarns. ‘We had a big night. We had a really, really big night.’ Such candour from a celebrity is refreshing, of course, but actually, I already know, because I was there too – in a hip bar on New York’s Lower East Side, where she partied until the small hours with Davidand eldest son Brooklyn to celebrate the launch of her latest collection. This morning, though, you honestly wouldn’t know – she’s perky, upbeat and not a bit bleary-eyed. The only departure from the groomed, glossy VB of red carpets and runway shows is that she’s dressed head-to-toe in athleisure.
‘I never thought that I would want to go out in leggings and a jumper,’ she freely admits. ‘But I feel great in these.’ It helps, of course, that she designed them herself. Today’s outfit – trainers, leggings and a cropped, roll-neck sweatshirt with oversized sleeves – are all part of her new Reebok x Victoria Beckham collection, many items of which sold out in less than 24 hours of release last week.
Back in her Spice Girls iteration, ‘Posh’ was permanently clad in tiny black dresses and vertiginous heels; and as Victoria Beckham, high fashion designer, she has built a reputation for elegant tailoring – this is not a woman one imagines sitting around in sweatpants. But, she insists, that high maintenance public image is wide of the mark. ‘I enjoy looking like the best version of myself, but I certainly don’t do that every day,’ she says. ‘Most mornings I spend in the gym, then taking the kids to school, then I have a quick shower and off to work.’
Victoria recently revealed that she works out for two hours a day, every day, and it shows – she is tiny and taut. ‘Working out is a huge part of my life,’ she nods. And yet in spite of her fiercely disciplined regime, ‘Like most women, I am pretty critical of myself,’ she shrugs. ‘But I am 44 years old, I’ve got a herd of kids at home, I accept the way that I look and I make the most of what I’ve got. I think that, as women, we should learn to take compliments and be kind to ourselves as well as each other.’
This is a message she’s trying to instil in her seven-year-old daughter, too. ‘I say to Harper all the time, it’s not about who is the prettiest girl in the class, it’s not about who is the smartest girl in the class, it’s about who is the kindest girl in the class. And it’s about feeling good about yourself, celebrating that and supporting other women.’ And what, I ask, about Brooklyn, 19, Romeo, 16, and Cruz, 13 – is she raising her boys to help empower and celebrate girls and women, as well? ‘Yes, definitely,’ she enthuses. ‘David and I have alwayscommunicated that message with the boys, too – that’s always been very important to us. It’s always been a very pro-female household, even when we were outnumbered. And now we have two female dogs, we’re evening things out a little.’
Her new collection itself contains an ethos of equality too – every item is designed to be unisex. ‘I don’t want a woman’s trainer, I don’t want a woman’s hoodie, I absolutely don’t want pink trainers just because I’m a girl. I want the same hoodie and tracksuit bottoms and trainers that the boys have. I think that is a much more modern way of dressing.’
Listening to Victoria talk about her multiple ranges and her many forthcoming ventures – her affordable luxury beauty range, her YouTube channel, her (yet-to-be- announced) wellness projects – it’s easy to forget the ridicule she faced when, a little over 10 years ago, she left behind a career in music and launched her embryonic fashion label. However, I would guess that she takes most scorn squarely on the chin. During this morning’s presentation of the collection, her microphone briefly cuts out. ‘Someone’s turned my mic off. That’s nothing new – it used to happen to me all the time,’ she deadpans.
And when I ask about the £99.95 bumbag in her collection, ‘Do you mean the fanny pack?’ she grins. ‘Whenever anyone talks about the fanny pack, it just brings me joy.’ (that item, too, is unisex, but I think I might struggle to find a British man happy to extol the virtues of his ‘fanny pack’.) Mind you, the collection already has the seal of approval from the people who matter the most to her. ‘My kids love sportswear, and have a great sense of style, so it was an enormous compliment to me when Cruz said, “Mum, I really want those trainers.”