It may be hard to imagine Victoria Beckham before she became famous, but like most other British teenage girls, she loved experimenting with fashion, and finding her style. She’s now watching her 14-year-old daughter, Harper, who attended Friday night’s show at the 17th century Val-de-Grace abbey, do the same.
Beckham’s added that her Netflix documentary, which is set for release later this month, had also put her in a reflective mood. “It’s really been a time for me to look back on my personal journey from when I was a young girl,” said Beckham, who was also inspired by “the sense of naivety” of Nineties films including “The Virgin Suicides” and Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo and Juliet.”
The result was a playful collection, with a slightly off-kilter feel.
Ruffled and ruched dresses in light blue, parchment and peppermint were spray-painted with arty stains to give them a vintage feel, while lace-edged slipdresses came with built-in wrinkles as if the girls had borrowed their mothers’ clothes, which didn’t quite fit, and then tossed them aside at the end of the night.
The waists of Japanese denim jeans were folded over, and pinned in place, a quick fix to make them smaller.
Other shapes also needed a bit of a slimming down. Beckham’s mannish suits are always roomy, but this season they looked a little too big on models. By contrast, the one that Beckham wore to take her bow was far neater.
Beckham played her silhouettes in other ways. Some dresses were fitted with small wires creating sculptural ruffles around the neck, while short black skirts looked like little lampshades, thanks to built-in wire hoops. Slim textured knitwear – long skirts and sweaters with ridges or waffle surfaces – were a nice counterpoint to all of that volume.
The sense of fantasy came through for evening, with red carpet looks, including short, curvy corset dresses scattered with tone-on-tone feathers, a nod to Claire Danes’ wings in “Romeo and Juliet.” They were simple and sweet, and should fuel the fast-growing Beckham business going forward.