The year was 1997. Victoria Beckham was still Victoria Adams, one-fifth of the pop group the Spice Girls, and she was on top of the world professionally. The song “Wannabe” was a smash hit, and both Spice World (the movie) and Spiceworld (the album) would be out in Britain before the end of the year. Privately, she was also in a new, very secret relationship with a very famous footballer.
“Up until that point, we’d really kept our relationship under wraps and only gone on secret rendezvous in very unglamorous locations,” Beckham tells me over Zoom early one morning, recalling her early courtship with husband David.
The mother of four and fashion designer has stolen a moment to chat between fittings for her fall 2026 presentation at Paris Fashion Week, and she’s feeling nostalgic. When she and David did decide to go public, they did it in a big way, by booking a romantic jaunt to Portofino. “I remember it so clearly: how blue the sky was, how the crisp white sheets smelled. It felt like nobody else existed but me and him.”
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The rest, in many ways, is history; the Beckhams married in Ireland in 1999 and have been together ever since. But that early trip has stayed with her—so much so, in fact, that Beckham has made it the basis for a fragrance from Victoria Beckham Beauty, which she’s revisiting with a new editorial this year. Appropriately named Portofino ‘97, the scent captures that fizzy, romantic moment with notes of cypress, skin musk, bergamot, and vetiver.
It’s something the two of them love to share. “I love to put on fragrance right when I get out of the bath, before I get in bed,” Beckham says. “David wears Portofino as well, and he does the same. And so I love that when I roll over in the night, I can smell my Portofino fragrance where he’s sleeping, as well.”
The seaside Italian village remains one of the Beckhams’ favorite places to visit, and now, nearly 30 years after that fateful trip, they do so with their family. In fact, they were there just last summer. “It’s the most romantic place on Earth,” Beckham says. “We took the children to the hotel where it all started, all of these places where we had beautiful meals and wine. David and I are really romantic, and the children are as well with their partners, so it was a really special moment to share.”