It was Victoria Beckham’s most personal collection to date
Lately, there’s a different scent wafting through the French salons of Victoria Beckham. After becoming a fixture on the French fashion schedule, her show this season coincided with the release of three artisanal perfumes soaked – from flacons to jus – in the elusive couture spirit of Paris. Slowly but surely, Beckham’s brand is becoming a fashion house. The collection she presented in the gilded ballrooms of Karl Lagerfeld’s former residence on Friday – to a front row including Kim Kardashian, Pamela Anderson and the Beckham clan – only went to prove it. “Working on the fragrances, and the memories connected to each of them, really emphasised how important storytelling is to me, and always has been,” she said during a preview, referring to the personal stories that have informed the perfumes. “Last season, when I was already working on them, that element naturally found its way into the collection narrative. This season, it became a starting point.” Beckham’s new taste for storytelling created her most personal collection to date, told through abstract and evocative dressmaking.
It was inspired by her formative dance education
Beckham’s collection was founded in her teenage memories of the intense classic and contemporary ballet training that eventually got her into musical theatre. “I was three or four when I started out: ballet, tap, all of it. When I was sixteen, I went to a college to really focus on dance,” she reminisced. “That was why, in my Spice Girls audition, whilst everyone else was singing Madonna, I sang ‘Mein Herr’ from Cabaret,” she laughed. “I’m surprised I managed to get the bloody job!” Taking her starting point in the unassuming rehearsal wardrobe of ballet, she reflected the current fashion climate’s inclination for reduction but invigorated her stripped-down silhouette with intriguing gestures of motion. Simple jersey T-shirts with droplet décolletés were suspended from wire in ways that freeze-framed the movements of ballet and injected the clothes with character. Beckham exercised the same ideas in dresses and knits worn as dresses, all quite abstract but easy to wear.
It was about infusing clothes with character
Veiled in the perfume that hovered in the rooms of Hôtel de Soyecourt – Suite 302, the most opulent of Beckham’s new fragrances – the draped jersey silhouettes were echoed in tulle dresses informed by her earliest archives. “I went into my mum’s storage and brought out all my old tutus,” she said, noting how dance still fills her mind. “I’m a frustrated ballerina! But I just wasn’t good enough so I had to find something else to do.” If she channelled those frustrations into intricate dressmaking, it was energy well spent. Beckham infused tailoring and lightweight dresses with the padding elements of a dancer’s wardrobe, three-dimensionalising everything from lapels to busts. She rendered the collection in the faded pastels of Degas’ ballerina works and Monet’s paintings of haystacks, as well as the metallic effects of his iterations on the Houses of Parliament. The Englishness of the latter two colour references signified the collection’s other key element.
She paid homage to her British country lifestyle
“I spend weekends in the countryside, so it feels very honest to me. There’s a community there, which we’re part of, and they really dress for various pursuits. David came home the other day and literally turned up in breeches and knee-high socks!” Beckham said, referring to her husband. “I dip in and out of it, but he’d love to see me in some tweed, a floral dress and a brogue. So, I thought I’d try to work with this sense of country heritage clothes.” Next to boyish country tailoring and some delectable field jackets, Beckham mirrored her idea of infusing clothes with character in the antique furnishing textiles she’d seen around old houses in the British countryside where she spends her weekends, from tablecloths to curtains and everything in between. They inspired the embroideries and general eccentricity of tea dresses that embodied the 1930s spirit, which often characterises Beckham’s silhouette. As far as storytelling went, these clothes had some tales to tell.
The accessories were familiar but fancified
“The collection feels very personal to me: my history with dance, my love of the British countryside. Like with the fragrances, I’m projecting these stories into something relatable,” Beckham said. In the clothes, that collective experience was reflected in the memories of movement and wear that imbued every garment. In the accessories, it was felt in a ‘normcore’ (but chic-ified) gym bags and toiletry pouches, and in country brogues and walking boots that had a certain familiarity about them. “I wanted to infuse every piece in this collection with stories and character,” Beckham said. “That's what makes us cherish things.”
No comments:
Post a Comment