Victoria Beckham Netflix doc’s huge revelations: Posh Spice to trend

Content material warning: This story consists of discussions of consuming issues.

When Netflix dropped its 2023 docuseries “Beckham,” Victoria Beckham stole the present together with her British humor and viral Rolls–Royce second. However the highlight was nonetheless largely her husband’s to relish.

The tables have turned in “Victoria Beckham,” launched Thursday on Netflix. The three-part docuseries — helmed by Nadia Hallgren, who directed “Turning into,” the streamer’s doc about Michelle Obama — follows the U.Okay.’s favourite honorary royal on her journey from awkward theater child to pop icon to trend mogul. The documentary is bookended by and structured across the Victoria Beckham Paris Trend Week present in 2024.

“It’s not about him,” Victoria says, referencing her legendary footballer husband within the documentary’s opening minutes. “It’s about me.”

Produced by David Beckham’s manufacturing firm, Studio 99, “Victoria Beckham” inevitably paints its eponymous topic in a flattering gentle, doubling down on her characterization as an “underdog” from a working-class household. However after listening to, over the course of the docuseries, British broadcasters lambaste Victoria about all the things from her weight to her naivety, it seems like she’s earned it.

Involved about how a documentary about her is perhaps obtained, Victoria stated she was initially hesitant to conform to the undertaking.

“At first, I stated ‘no,’ however then I took a little bit of time and I actually thought lengthy and exhausting about it,” the designer stated. “I’ve been so outlined by once I was within the Spice Ladies, which was solely a four-year interval in my life, whereas trend I’ve been in for coming as much as twenty years.”

“Up till not too long ago, I used to be conscious I used to be nonetheless combating the preconceptions due to my earlier profession and all the time being conscious of the noise and simply specializing in constructing the [fashion and beauty] model,” she stated. It was solely not too long ago that she felt that she may share her story with out it reflecting negatively on her enterprise ventures.

Whereas the docuseries dodges controversial matters like David’s alleged affair, a possible Spice Ladies reunion and the Beckhams’ rumored rift with their son Brooklyn Peltz Beckham — who, not like his three siblings, by no means seems within the movie — and his spouse, Nicola Peltz Beckham, it does nonetheless reveal a lot about Victoria and her fraught relationship together with her Posh Spice persona.

Listed below are seven takeaways from the Netflix docuseries.

With the Spice Ladies, Victoria blossomed

As a younger lady rising up in Hertfordshire, England, Victoria didn’t have many mates and her confidence suffered because of this.

“I used to be positively a loner at college,” Victoria stated. “I used to be bullied. I used to be awkward. I wasn’t significantly sociable. I simply didn’t slot in in any respect.”

However turning into Posh Spice fully altered how she perceived herself and was a important step towards self-acceptance.

“It was the primary time that I ever felt like I belonged. Impulsively, I used to be well-liked,” Victoria stated. “My life can be very completely different if I hadn’t met these 4 women.”

From Posh Spice to WAG

Victoria is usually credited for creating the phenomenon of WAGs (wives and girlfriends of high-profile athletes).

Shortly after she married David in 1999, the Spice Ladies disbanded, leaving Victoria with no key facet of her identification: “We had been like a twister, after which impulsively, it stopped.”

Misplaced with out her pop-star persona, Victoria leaned into the position of supportive spouse. Her public outings consisted of attending Manchester United video games and searching for designer garments — all the time in view of paparazzi.

“I take a look at these footage and I smile. However once I look again and assume, why?” Victoria stated within the documentary. “I suppose there was a component of attention-seeking, if I’m being fully sincere. It was at a time once I didn’t really feel creatively fulfilled, so it’s how I stayed within the dialog.”

“I didn’t understand it on the time, however I used to be looking for myself,” she stated. “I felt incomplete, unhappy, frozen in time perhaps.”

“I’ve been all the things from Porky Posh to Skinny Posh,” Victoria Beckham stated in her Netflix docuseries, launched Thursday.

(Netflix)

Victoria battled an consuming dysfunction

Mere months after giving start to Brooklyn in 1999, Victoria was pressured into weighing herself reside on Chris Evans’ present “TFI Friday” so viewers may see whether or not she’d misplaced her “child weight.” She laughed it off, however the expertise traumatized her.

“I didn’t know what I noticed once I appeared within the mirror. Was I fats? Was I skinny? I don’t know. You lose all sense of actuality,” she stated.

Unable to affect what the tabloids stated about her physique, Victoria stated she managed her weight as an alternative: “I used to be controlling it in an extremely unhealthy method.”

Victoria stated that she by no means confided in her dad and mom about her consuming dysfunction, nor did she ever discuss it publicly. She first opened up about her restrictive weight loss plan and binge consuming in her 2001 autobiography, “Studying to Fly.”

“Within the gymnasium, as an alternative of checking my posture or place, I used to be checking the scale of my backside, or to see if my double chin was getting any smaller,” she writes within the guide — though she denies having had anorexia.

At first, designers laughed Victoria off

Following the Beckhams’ transfer throughout the pond to California, Victoria determined to noticeably pursue her dream of working within the trend business. When information broke of her profession pivot, designers had been skeptical.

And when her debut assortment bought remarkably good press, she was accused of passing off her mentor Roland Mouret’s designs as her personal.

“After all, there’s gotta be a person behind it. It couldn’t be like a foolish little pop star,” Victoria stated within the documentary.

Victoria, who had been infatuated with trend since childhood and had spent a lot of the Spice Ladies’ clothes price range on Gucci attire, refused to surrender so simply. She put her head down and saved working till she earned her friends’ respect.

Anna Wintour is a Victoria Beckham fan

In 2009, Madonna wore a black zippered gown from Victoria Beckham’s debut assortment in a W Journal photoshoot. Two years later, Victoria Beckham gained designer model of the yr on the British Trend Awards.

Even Anna Wintour admitted she had misjudged the pop star-turned-luxury designer.

“I believe we are able to all be a bit snobby within the trend enterprise and assume, perhaps that is, you understand, a aspect gig,” Wintour stated within the doc. “However Victoria was one that completely proved us incorrect.”

Victoria’s enterprise nearly went below

Among the many documentary’s most stunning moments is Victoria’s enterprise companion David Belhassen revealing that the designer was spending $70,000 a yr on workplace crops. (Plus one other $15,000 yearly for somebody to water them.)

That reality goes a good distance in explaining why Victoria’s model, whereas usually well-regarded, was deep in debt even after years of funding from the designer’s husband.

“We had been tens of tens of millions within the purple,” Victoria stated.

As soon as David reluctantly closed the financial institution, Victoria was “determined,” she stated. So she pleaded her case with Belhassen.

Flummoxed by the extent of monetary waste and the dire state of affairs Victoria’s model confronted, Belhassen initially resolved to inform Victoria “no.” Then, by probability, his spouse wore a Victoria Beckham gown to this point night time; shocked by the standard of the garment, he modified his thoughts.

“[Victoria] was very emotional, and she or he advised me, ‘I gained’t allow you to down,’” Belhassen stated.

Ladies’s Put on Every day reported in August that the model’s income hit $150 million final yr and that it’s now “on monitor for long-term profitability.”

Posh Spice is prior to now

Victoria stated within the documentary that she is going to all the time be thankful for the alternatives the Spice Ladies gave her.

“I’ve by no means forgotten the place I come from. I’ve by no means, ever forgotten that Posh Spice is the explanation that I’m sitting right here now,” she stated.

However she’s additionally recognized for the reason that Return of the Spice Ladies Tour, the legendary lady group’s reunion tour that ran from 2007 to 2008, that her days as Posh Spice are lengthy gone.

“It was throughout that tour that I spotted I didn’t belong on stage. It had been enjoyable, however it wasn’t what I cherished anymore,” she stated. Trend has been her focus since, and she or he’s nonetheless hungry for fulfillment together with her Victoria Beckham model.

As Victoria tells David within the last moments of the docuseries, “I’m proud and I’m not ashamed to say that I’m formidable, and I’ve nonetheless bought so much that I wanna do.”

“I’m not stopping but,” she stated.

Victoria and David Beckham stroll the grounds of their Cotswolds, England, property, which is featured closely in “Victoria Beckham.”

(Netflix)