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Imagine you've spent years building a fashion label.
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Okay, so you've designed all the pieces, you've perfected the designs, you have your very first show, and now you're holding your breath, waiting for the reviews.
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And then you see one.
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The woman, formerly known as Posh Spice, has launched a collection, and believe it or not, it's one of the hottest things going in New York this week.
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As a young designer, brand new to an industry that has a reputation for being ruthless, Victoria Beckham should have been overjoyed.
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For all accounts, the review was overwhelmingly positive.
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Yet all she could see was not bad for a Spice Girl.
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Victoria said that for her first few seasons as a designer, this would happen very often.
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Reviewers would mention she'd been in the Spice Girls and then expressed surprise that they liked the collection.
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She knew she had a challenge in front of her.
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So what happens when the identity that made you successful becomes the one people expect you to keep?
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What some people don't know is that, mmm, this wasn't her first rodeo, because before she was a pop star, she was virtually unknown.
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But Victoria Beckham did things differently, and those same key decisions she made that was responsible for her shift into pop stardom, she did again and went from one of the pretty faces of a 90s girl group that no one took seriously to a respected name in fashion design.
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If you are someone trying to change direction in your career, make more ambitious work, or you just have the sense that you're meant to become known for something bigger, Victoria's story is worth studying.
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And I did all the work for you, so you don't have to.
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I'm Melody.
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I study the greats in entertainment, art, and pop culture, so you can be greater.
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If you are obsessed with content and creativity and the people who break the rules to do things their way, make sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss a thing.
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So Victoria was the baddie in the little black dress with the Bob who always looked as though she was unimpressed.
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And I say that with affection.
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Now the group didn't start out with some perfectly engineered set of costumes.
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Mel C, aka Sporty Spice, has talked about how they push two dresses individuals rather than wear matching outfits.
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The nicknames for each of them came later.
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For Victoria, Posh was incredibly effective.
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She looked a little out of place, as if she just accidentally walked into a Spice Girls rehearsal while waiting for Neiman Marcus to open and everyone else just went with it.
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But that was what gave her that mystique among the over-the-top outfits and hair of the other girls.
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She didn't have to be the loudest person in the room.
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You could recognize her from just a silhouette and describe her in three words little black dress.
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Now, if you want any kind of attention on your life and what you do, being so instantly recognizable is kind of the dream.
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Most creators, artists, and entertainers would be thrilled if someone could look at a piece of their work and know it was theirs without even seeing their name behind it.
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But just imagine having such a successful first act that people treat it as the answer to every question they'll ever have about you.
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Victoria's image opened doors, but it also tended to walk through them before she did.
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After the group's initial run, she tried making music on her own.
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Her solo album reached the UK top 10 and she had a top 10 single.
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But being bigger than the Spice Girls was hard to top, and the girl group was kind of lightning in a bottle in a sense, and she couldn't really separate herself from that image.
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And then there's a particular kind of pressure in that situation.
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People aren't only asking whether your new music is good, they're watching to see whether you can be as successful without the thing that made you famous in the first place.
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So for a while, without the Spice Girls, she was just David Beckham's glamorous wife.
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This poor woman, people completely picked apart her appearance.
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If she gained weight after having a baby, if she got too skinny, everyone had something to say.
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She got into fashion because she wanted to create pieces that reflected her sleek, unique style.
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And despite the ridicule from the media, she stayed true to herself and said, Hold on, there's a brand here.
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I just need to redirect my attention.
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And this is the stretch that gets skipped when we tell the tidy version of the story.
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She didn't go straight from a Spice Girl stage to that first collection of dresses.
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There was a journey in between there.
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And it began with jeans.
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So years before she started her label, in 2004, Victoria worked with Rock and Republic on a denim collection called VB Rocks.
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I know VB Rocks, it sounds like something printed in rhinestones on the back of a very specific pair of jeans.
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It was also 2004, we all made choices.
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And her designs ran for about$300 a pair.
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So here's what's interesting Victoria Beckham could have sold out and done something with, say, Target, made some easy money, let them handle the marketing.
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But no, Victoria had a very crystal clear vision of the brand she wanted to convey.
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She was not meant to be accessible by everyone at that time.
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That was the point.
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This gave her a unique set of challenges and some creative control to work with.
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She had opinions about how jeans should fit, including how they looked with heels.
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She said, no, I'm going to posh this up, and she did.
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From there, she created her own denimline DVB, it had sunglasses and other collaborations.
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She later talked about learning by working on the job and working with designers because she hadn't gone to fashion college and she knew if she wanted to be impressive, she had to learn from the best of the best.
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Leverage those resources and contacts, girlfriend.
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And this decision let her experiment until she got the courage and experience to launch her own label.
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So she didn't just slap her initials on a piece of clothing and was like, well, here it is.
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She was part of the process, learning the craft, testing the products, and working alongside people who had been in the industry forever.
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She also didn't really talk about her departure from music.
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She moved in complete silence.
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And that feels much closer to how a career change actually happens.
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You don't always wake up on a Tuesday with a press release for the person that you're going to be for the rest of your life.
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Sometimes you start working on the next thing while the last thing is still happening and recognizable.
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Victoria has written about watching Elton John perform and noticing how much she loved being on stage.
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That was her once.
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She auditioned for the Spice Girls with some musical theater song, not a popular song on the radio at that time, and just kind of stayed true to herself and it worked for her.
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And how she explained her departure from music is that she enjoyed singing and dancing but didn't feel the same passion for it.
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And I think her admitting that is more interesting than saying something like, she always knew exactly where she'd end up.
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Just imagine being part of one of the biggest pop groups in the world and realizing the experience was incredible, but the actual work of performing might not be what you want to keep doing.
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Sobering, but also that's listening to your intuition and making decisions based on what feels most aligning.
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So that's exactly what she did.
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So by 2007, she was at Saks in New York launching DVB denim and sunglasses.
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A reporter spoke to fans who came to see Victoria but hadn't bought the clothes.
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She was now a designer, awesome.
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But she knew if she wanted to make a name for herself, she had to get to work.
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Now we get to 2008, and I want you to picture a very large Marc Jacobs shopping bag.
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Victoria is in it.
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Or rather, parts of Victoria are emerging from it.
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Her arms, her legs.
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Juergenteller photographed her for this Marc Jacobs campaign, and the image is ridiculous in the best possible way.
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It works because you know exactly who she is, even when she's partly hidden.
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The whole joke behind it depends on her being that recognizable.
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Our girl still had it.
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It also captures an interesting point in her career.
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She's a fashion image for someone else's brand, photographed next to someone else's name while getting ready to launch her own label.
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So I want you to hold on to that mental image.
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We're gonna come back to it.
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So around the same time, Victoria is preparing a collection for spring 2009.
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The gas is hot.
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People are whispering, oh my god, what's Victoria going to do?
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She's so glamorous.
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Of course, she'll throw this huge launch with famous friends and photographer.
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She knew she could make a fashion event so big that no one would even remember the clothes.
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And that's exactly what she didn't do.
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Never let them know your next movie.
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Instead, she shows ten dresses in a suite at the Waldorf in New York.
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I have brought more outfit options than that for a weekend in Palm Springs.
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But this was on purpose, and the small group she invited consisted of fashion editors and buyers, and she personally talked them through the details and construction of each piece.
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She explains how everything was intentional and didn't hide behind a spectacular event.
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And these were expensive dresses, okay?
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This wasn't posh merch that you pick up at a thrift store.
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She believed if a store was going to carry them and a customer was going to spend that kind of money, the clothes needed a reason to exist.
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One early review describes details like scenes shaped around the body and a long zipper that made a dress easier to get into without wrecking your hair and makeup.
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Victoria Beckham, girl power, just in a different font.
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That detail should tell you something about Victoria's contribution.
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She'd spent years wearing clothes in public and knew how she wanted them to look and feel.
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She had preferences, taste, and she noticed problems.
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And even more importantly, she could explain what she wanted a garment to do with surgical-like precision.
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Of course, noticing a problem and making a beautifully constructed dress are two different skills.
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Which brings us to the people around her.
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Victoria was heavily involved, but designer Roland Moray advised her, and his involvement prompted speculation that he was secretly designing the collection.
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An account that he relentlessly pushed back on.
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He described offering advice and contacts.
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And I want to linger here for a second because this happens a lot when a famous person enters a field that requires technical expertise, asking who did what is fair.
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Fashion is collaborative and customers deserve to know that there's substance behind a celebrity name.
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But there's also a strange assumption hiding in an idea that having an experienced person help you learn proves you aren't doing the work.
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And of course, a woman couldn't possibly be behind such a great vision without the help of a man.
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The point is, if you want to do anything and be great at it, you need to study it, eat, sleep, and breathe it, notice details that others might miss and work with the greats to learn from them and be inspired by them.
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So she did.
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These first dresses drew great reviews and retailer interest, and she accomplished her first big goal.
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She made a collection people could seriously examine.
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Then she had to make the next one.
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This is the bit that success stories tend to turn into like a pretty woman montage.
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Lovely first review, cut to award.
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Everybody claps, hooray! In reality, the next season arrives regardless of whether you're having an inspiring personal transformation.
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There are fabrics to choose and problems to solve, and the room full of people who came out of curiosity last time now has a reason to expect something.
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And those early reviews kept bringing up the Spice Girls.
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So Victoria kept making collections, getting better, slowly, more and more recognition.
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By 2011, her label had won Designer Brand of the Year at the British Fashion Awards.
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It won again in 2014.
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In between, the business grew.
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She added a second, more playful line called Victoria Victoria Beckham.
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In 2014, she opened a flagship store on Dover Street in London, and eventually the brand reached customers at different price points.
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In 2017, Victoria collaborated with Target on a collection where most pieces cost less than$40.
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Now, I know this seems contradictory to my earlier statement where I mentioned she didn't want to cheapen her brand by going to Target when she first started designing.
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But hold on, things have changed, the tables have turned, and now this made sense for her brand.
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Had Victoria started with Target, she very likely wouldn't have been taken seriously.
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By 2017, though, she had established her reputation, and the next logical step was scale and accessibility.
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The Target collection let a much wider group of people now take a piece home.
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Target later described it as one of its biggest limited time partnerships.
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At what point do you retire the description of her work as Spice Girl Tries Fashion?
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The answer?
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Well, it took a while.
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Victoria has said that while she was still showing in New York, she felt the industry had begun taking her seriously, finally.
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That doesn't mean every person on Earth updated their opinion at once.
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Some people were wearing the clothes, while others were still stuck on the mental image of her belting out, spice up your life, on a stage.
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But the conversation inside fashion was changing.
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More and more, there was actual work to talk about.
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Here's where the story takes a turn, though.
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Fashion brands are expensive to run.
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That may sound obvious, but it's easy to see a packed event, a gorgeous store, or a famous person wearing a dress and assume the company behind it must be doing great.
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So in 2017, Neo Investment Partners put 30 million pounds, that's nearly 40 million US dollars, into Victoria's business.
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That support gave it room to grow, and it's an important part of the story.
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Most independent designers just don't have access to anything like it.
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And even with the investment, the company went through quite a bit of financial struggles.
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This is where I think Victoria's story gets particularly useful for creators because we're often handed one scoreboard at a time that posted well, great.
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Did it bring in the right audience?
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The industry respects you, wonderful.
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Can you pay the people helping you produce the next collection?
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Victoria has also spoken about how people around her could be reluctant to say no.
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And that's a fascinating problem for someone whose name is on the label.
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Earlier, she needed people willing to take her ambition seriously.
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Once she was in charge of a growing business, now she needed people who would tell her when an idea wasn't working and push back.
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So in 2021, Victoria and the company's CEO described a substantial change.
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They planned to bring the main label and the Victoria Victoria Beckham line together.
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They also aimed to bring the average price point down from more than 900 pounds to around 550.
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That's about 1200 to 600 US dollars bargain.
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Now, of course, that is still an expensive piece of clothing, but it was a meaningful change within their business, and they couldn't do it by simply crossing out one number and writing a smaller one beside it.
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They had to revisit factories, suppliers, and how the clothes were made.
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By then, Victoria had spent years persuading people that her fashion label was serious.
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Now she had to be willing to change how part of that label worked.
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That's uncomfortable when your taste and your name are attached to every choice.
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So this whole time the fashion business was evolving.
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Meanwhile, Victoria had been developing another part of her world.
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She worked with Estee Lauder on makeup collections and met Sarah Creel, an experienced beauty executive and product developer.
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The two later launched Victoria Beckham Beauty in 2019.
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A genius transition because Victoria's signature smokey eye had been part of her image for years.
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But again, same story.
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Recognition only gets someone interested enough to try it.
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Her business partner brought deep product development experience.
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Victoria brought an archive of beauty products and detailed preferences about how she wanted makeup to look and feel.
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Their first launch focused solely on eye makeup.
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Now, I really like this detail because beauty launches can create pressure to offer every possible thing immediately.
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Eyes, lips, skin, fragrance, a candle named after your childhood feelings.
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Their first offer was narrower.
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And I think as creators, we fall into something similar where we want to be everywhere at once, every platform, writing, making video, doing all the things.
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But she stayed focused and that let her concentrate on doing something well.
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And it was a commercial success.
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Are you seeing the through line here?
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Okay, so have a vision, stick to it relentlessly, branch out where it feels natural, but stay focused.
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The Victoria Beckham formula, if you will.
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And then there was Paris.
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Paris is the final boss of the fashion world, okay?
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Victoria held her first Paris Fashion Week show in 2022.
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She'd already won industry awards, she'd shown in New York and London, but Paris was a place she really wanted to reach, and she described feeling nervous about it.
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That detail makes me like this moment even more because we tend to imagine that by the time someone has made it, they just stroll into every next room like they own the building.
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Meanwhile, here's Victoria Beckham, decades into her public life, still feeling the stakes of a first.
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It featured beautiful bias-cut silk dresses, delicate spaghetti straps, deconstructed tailoring satin, and lingerie-inspired body conscious aesthetics.
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And at the end of the show, our girl, a visibly overwhelmed Victoria, just broke down in tears while walking the catwalk.
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And the critics, they praised the collection for its quiet glamour.
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For me, Paris isn't proof that everyone finally agreed on Victoria Beckham.
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There's no single fashion ceremony where someone takes away your old identity and hands you a new laminated badge.
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It's a bigger room in which the work has to hold up.
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And by that point, she had put in the work.
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She had years of collections, collaborators, customers, adjustments, and hard lessons behind her.
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In results reported in 2026, Victoria Beckham's holding recorded a 7.3 million pound, that's around 9.5 million US dollars, operating profit for 2025.
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And here's what you didn't know.
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It was her company's first operating profit since the label began in 2008.
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This whole time, she was operating at a loss.
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Now I know that seems unusual that her company would be operating for so long, practically hemorrhaging money.
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And under normal circumstances, an independent business that bleeds cash for over a decade would face bankruptcy or liquidation.
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Victoria Beckham's company survived strictly because her and her husband, David, heavily subsidized it and external investors bought into the brand's long-term potential.
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Now I know this is this is so unrealistic, right?
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But this was Victoria's reality and this was the contacts and the resources that she leveraged over the course of her career.
00:18:06.799 --> 00:18:12.480
Yes, she had resources and she could keep herself afloat, but she also had people that believed in her vision.
00:18:12.720 --> 00:18:15.680
17 years after those 10 dresses in the hotel suite.
00:18:15.839 --> 00:18:17.359
Okay, back to the bag.
00:18:17.519 --> 00:18:21.759
So remember earlier when I mentioned Victoria in the Marc Jacobs shopping bag?
00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:30.960
10 years after the original campaign, she recreated that image with the same photographer for the anniversary of her own label.
00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:35.680
Same woman, same ridiculous idea, legs sticking out of a giant shopping bag.
00:18:35.839 --> 00:18:39.759
This time, the bag didn't say Marc Jacobs, it said Victoria Beckham.
00:18:39.839 --> 00:18:40.640
What a baddie.
00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:45.279
Once again, she moves in complete silence, doesn't give a speech about growth, okay?
00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:51.279
She just gives a cheeky little wink back to an earlier version of herself and she lets you figure out what changed.
00:18:51.440 --> 00:18:53.839
And she didn't have to get rid of Posh either.
00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:56.960
Her beauty brand eventually released a lipstick called Posh.
00:18:57.119 --> 00:19:00.400
The name could belong to her again as something that she chose to use.
00:19:00.480 --> 00:19:03.039
She said, Okay, you're gonna call me Posh my entire life.
00:19:03.200 --> 00:19:06.160
Well, I'm gonna run with it and it's gonna be on my terms.
00:19:06.319 --> 00:19:17.039
And that honestly feels like a way more honest version of reinvention than the one where you throw out every photograph from your old life, cut your own bangs, and announce that you're an entirely different person, right?
00:19:17.279 --> 00:19:19.440
Victoria was posh spice.
00:19:19.599 --> 00:19:23.759
That experience gave her visibility and a visual language that people still remember.
00:19:23.920 --> 00:19:28.720
It also meant that she had to live with people underestimating the work she wanted to do next.
00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:34.160
She couldn't control when every person would change their mind, but she could keep giving them new evidence.
00:19:34.400 --> 00:19:40.720
What I keep thinking about when I look at this story, I don't come away thinking, be patient and everyone will understand you.
00:19:40.960 --> 00:19:44.559
I keep thinking about how specific Victoria's attempts were.
00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:48.000
She wanted jeans that fit a certain way, so she worked on jeans.
00:19:48.240 --> 00:19:52.720
She wanted to make dresses, so she showed 10 to people who could judge them closely.
00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:56.640
When she moved into beauty, she worked with someone who knew how to develop the products.
00:19:56.799 --> 00:20:01.200
When her fashion business needed to change, she revisited the structure and the prices.
00:20:01.440 --> 00:20:05.359
There were resources available to her that most people won't have.
00:20:05.599 --> 00:20:07.359
Fame brought that attention.
00:20:07.599 --> 00:20:09.599
Investment bought the company time.
00:20:09.920 --> 00:20:15.359
It would be silly to leave either of those out and pretend that everyone can follow the same timetable.
00:20:15.839 --> 00:20:21.519
But I do think there's a really useful question here for anyone who has been known for one thing and wants to make another.
00:20:21.759 --> 00:20:26.400
What could you make next that would let the right people see the direction you want to go?
00:20:26.640 --> 00:20:33.279
If people know you for making funny videos and you want to make something more intimate, you have to give them a piece before they can imagine you making it.
00:20:33.519 --> 00:20:38.960
Some will come with you, some will need time, a few may keep asking when you're going back to the thing that they liked first.
00:20:39.119 --> 00:20:42.480
And that can hurt, especially when that first thing was a genuine part of you.
00:20:42.720 --> 00:20:45.920
Victoria Beckham's story doesn't offer a way to avoid that feeling.
00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:50.079
It shows what she did while other people's picture of her were still catching up.
00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:51.519
Thanks for hanging out.
00:20:51.839 --> 00:20:54.799
That's a wrap on this episode of Genes of the Blazer.
00:20:54.880 --> 00:21:00.400
If today's conversation gave you something to think about, a mindset shift, or just the push you needed, do me a favor.
00:21:00.559 --> 00:21:03.279
Subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode.
00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:05.680
Leave a review wherever you enjoy your podcast.
00:21:05.920 --> 00:21:09.759
It helps more people find it and it keeps these conversations going.
00:21:09.920 --> 00:21:11.440
And I love hearing from you.
00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:18.720
Follow at Jeans of the Blazer and tag me with your biggest takeaways, your latest wins, or just tell me what topics you want to hear about next.
00:21:18.880 --> 00:21:19.519
See you next time.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:02.879
Imagine you've spent years building a fashion label.
00:00:02.959 --> 00:00:11.439
Okay, so you've designed all the pieces, you've perfected the designs, you have your very first show, and now you're holding your breath, waiting for the reviews.
00:00:11.599 --> 00:00:12.960
And then you see one.
00:00:13.199 --> 00:00:20.480
The woman, formerly known as Posh Spice, has launched a collection, and believe it or not, it's one of the hottest things going in New York this week.
00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:26.960
As a young designer, brand new to an industry that has a reputation for being ruthless, Victoria Beckham should have been overjoyed.
00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:29.920
For all accounts, the review was overwhelmingly positive.
00:00:30.079 --> 00:00:34.880
Yet all she could see was not bad for a Spice Girl.
00:00:35.119 --> 00:00:39.679
Victoria said that for her first few seasons as a designer, this would happen very often.
00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:44.799
Reviewers would mention she'd been in the Spice Girls and then expressed surprise that they liked the collection.
00:00:45.039 --> 00:00:47.280
She knew she had a challenge in front of her.
00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:53.359
So what happens when the identity that made you successful becomes the one people expect you to keep?
00:00:53.520 --> 00:01:01.439
What some people don't know is that, mmm, this wasn't her first rodeo, because before she was a pop star, she was virtually unknown.
00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:19.439
But Victoria Beckham did things differently, and those same key decisions she made that was responsible for her shift into pop stardom, she did again and went from one of the pretty faces of a 90s girl group that no one took seriously to a respected name in fashion design.
00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:30.480
If you are someone trying to change direction in your career, make more ambitious work, or you just have the sense that you're meant to become known for something bigger, Victoria's story is worth studying.
00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:33.439
And I did all the work for you, so you don't have to.
00:01:33.599 --> 00:01:34.400
I'm Melody.
00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:38.799
I study the greats in entertainment, art, and pop culture, so you can be greater.
00:01:38.959 --> 00:01:47.200
If you are obsessed with content and creativity and the people who break the rules to do things their way, make sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss a thing.
00:02:11.840 --> 00:02:17.439
So Victoria was the baddie in the little black dress with the Bob who always looked as though she was unimpressed.
00:02:17.599 --> 00:02:18.879
And I say that with affection.
00:02:19.039 --> 00:02:22.639
Now the group didn't start out with some perfectly engineered set of costumes.
00:02:22.800 --> 00:02:28.879
Mel C, aka Sporty Spice, has talked about how they push two dresses individuals rather than wear matching outfits.
00:02:29.039 --> 00:02:31.599
The nicknames for each of them came later.
00:02:31.759 --> 00:02:34.879
For Victoria, Posh was incredibly effective.
00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:44.000
She looked a little out of place, as if she just accidentally walked into a Spice Girls rehearsal while waiting for Neiman Marcus to open and everyone else just went with it.
00:02:44.240 --> 00:02:49.599
But that was what gave her that mystique among the over-the-top outfits and hair of the other girls.
00:02:49.759 --> 00:02:52.000
She didn't have to be the loudest person in the room.
00:02:52.159 --> 00:02:57.680
You could recognize her from just a silhouette and describe her in three words little black dress.
00:02:57.840 --> 00:03:04.879
Now, if you want any kind of attention on your life and what you do, being so instantly recognizable is kind of the dream.
00:03:05.039 --> 00:03:12.240
Most creators, artists, and entertainers would be thrilled if someone could look at a piece of their work and know it was theirs without even seeing their name behind it.
00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:20.240
But just imagine having such a successful first act that people treat it as the answer to every question they'll ever have about you.
00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:24.800
Victoria's image opened doors, but it also tended to walk through them before she did.
00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:27.919
After the group's initial run, she tried making music on her own.
00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:31.520
Her solo album reached the UK top 10 and she had a top 10 single.
00:03:31.680 --> 00:03:40.159
But being bigger than the Spice Girls was hard to top, and the girl group was kind of lightning in a bottle in a sense, and she couldn't really separate herself from that image.
00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:43.919
And then there's a particular kind of pressure in that situation.
00:03:44.159 --> 00:03:51.759
People aren't only asking whether your new music is good, they're watching to see whether you can be as successful without the thing that made you famous in the first place.
00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:56.080
So for a while, without the Spice Girls, she was just David Beckham's glamorous wife.
00:03:56.319 --> 00:03:58.800
This poor woman, people completely picked apart her appearance.
00:03:58.960 --> 00:04:03.919
If she gained weight after having a baby, if she got too skinny, everyone had something to say.
00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:09.120
She got into fashion because she wanted to create pieces that reflected her sleek, unique style.
00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:15.599
And despite the ridicule from the media, she stayed true to herself and said, Hold on, there's a brand here.
00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:18.079
I just need to redirect my attention.
00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:23.199
And this is the stretch that gets skipped when we tell the tidy version of the story.
00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:28.560
She didn't go straight from a Spice Girl stage to that first collection of dresses.
00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:30.240
There was a journey in between there.
00:04:30.399 --> 00:04:32.079
And it began with jeans.
00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:40.800
So years before she started her label, in 2004, Victoria worked with Rock and Republic on a denim collection called VB Rocks.
00:04:41.279 --> 00:04:46.720
I know VB Rocks, it sounds like something printed in rhinestones on the back of a very specific pair of jeans.
00:04:46.879 --> 00:04:49.279
It was also 2004, we all made choices.
00:04:49.519 --> 00:04:52.240
And her designs ran for about$300 a pair.
00:04:52.399 --> 00:04:59.439
So here's what's interesting Victoria Beckham could have sold out and done something with, say, Target, made some easy money, let them handle the marketing.
00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:03.920
But no, Victoria had a very crystal clear vision of the brand she wanted to convey.
00:05:04.079 --> 00:05:07.360
She was not meant to be accessible by everyone at that time.
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That was the point.
00:05:09.040 --> 00:05:12.639
This gave her a unique set of challenges and some creative control to work with.
00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:16.639
She had opinions about how jeans should fit, including how they looked with heels.
00:05:16.879 --> 00:05:20.480
She said, no, I'm going to posh this up, and she did.
00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:25.680
From there, she created her own denimline DVB, it had sunglasses and other collaborations.
00:05:25.839 --> 00:05:37.279
She later talked about learning by working on the job and working with designers because she hadn't gone to fashion college and she knew if she wanted to be impressive, she had to learn from the best of the best.
00:05:37.519 --> 00:05:39.920
Leverage those resources and contacts, girlfriend.
00:05:40.079 --> 00:05:44.879
And this decision let her experiment until she got the courage and experience to launch her own label.
00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:49.120
So she didn't just slap her initials on a piece of clothing and was like, well, here it is.
00:05:49.279 --> 00:05:55.360
She was part of the process, learning the craft, testing the products, and working alongside people who had been in the industry forever.
00:05:55.600 --> 00:05:59.680
She also didn't really talk about her departure from music.
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She moved in complete silence.
00:06:02.399 --> 00:06:07.040
And that feels much closer to how a career change actually happens.
00:06:07.279 --> 00:06:13.600
You don't always wake up on a Tuesday with a press release for the person that you're going to be for the rest of your life.
00:06:13.839 --> 00:06:19.360
Sometimes you start working on the next thing while the last thing is still happening and recognizable.
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Victoria has written about watching Elton John perform and noticing how much she loved being on stage.
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That was her once.
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She auditioned for the Spice Girls with some musical theater song, not a popular song on the radio at that time, and just kind of stayed true to herself and it worked for her.
00:06:35.920 --> 00:06:42.000
And how she explained her departure from music is that she enjoyed singing and dancing but didn't feel the same passion for it.
00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:49.040
And I think her admitting that is more interesting than saying something like, she always knew exactly where she'd end up.
00:06:49.279 --> 00:06:58.480
Just imagine being part of one of the biggest pop groups in the world and realizing the experience was incredible, but the actual work of performing might not be what you want to keep doing.
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Sobering, but also that's listening to your intuition and making decisions based on what feels most aligning.
00:07:04.480 --> 00:07:05.600
So that's exactly what she did.
00:07:05.759 --> 00:07:10.000
So by 2007, she was at Saks in New York launching DVB denim and sunglasses.
00:07:10.240 --> 00:07:14.319
A reporter spoke to fans who came to see Victoria but hadn't bought the clothes.
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She was now a designer, awesome.
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But she knew if she wanted to make a name for herself, she had to get to work.
00:07:20.959 --> 00:07:26.959
Now we get to 2008, and I want you to picture a very large Marc Jacobs shopping bag.
00:07:27.120 --> 00:07:28.240
Victoria is in it.
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Or rather, parts of Victoria are emerging from it.
00:07:31.439 --> 00:07:32.480
Her arms, her legs.
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Juergenteller photographed her for this Marc Jacobs campaign, and the image is ridiculous in the best possible way.
00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:43.920
It works because you know exactly who she is, even when she's partly hidden.
00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:47.519
The whole joke behind it depends on her being that recognizable.
00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:48.800
Our girl still had it.
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It also captures an interesting point in her career.
00:07:51.759 --> 00:07:58.639
She's a fashion image for someone else's brand, photographed next to someone else's name while getting ready to launch her own label.
00:07:58.879 --> 00:08:00.959
So I want you to hold on to that mental image.
00:08:01.040 --> 00:08:02.079
We're gonna come back to it.
00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:06.560
So around the same time, Victoria is preparing a collection for spring 2009.
00:08:06.800 --> 00:08:08.000
The gas is hot.
00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:11.120
People are whispering, oh my god, what's Victoria going to do?
00:08:11.279 --> 00:08:12.160
She's so glamorous.
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Of course, she'll throw this huge launch with famous friends and photographer.
00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:20.959
She knew she could make a fashion event so big that no one would even remember the clothes.
00:08:21.120 --> 00:08:23.360
And that's exactly what she didn't do.
00:08:23.600 --> 00:08:25.040
Never let them know your next movie.
00:08:25.600 --> 00:08:31.680
Instead, she shows ten dresses in a suite at the Waldorf in New York.
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I have brought more outfit options than that for a weekend in Palm Springs.
00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:44.960
But this was on purpose, and the small group she invited consisted of fashion editors and buyers, and she personally talked them through the details and construction of each piece.
00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:49.360
She explains how everything was intentional and didn't hide behind a spectacular event.
00:08:49.519 --> 00:08:51.440
And these were expensive dresses, okay?
00:08:51.519 --> 00:08:54.720
This wasn't posh merch that you pick up at a thrift store.
00:08:54.960 --> 00:09:01.679
She believed if a store was going to carry them and a customer was going to spend that kind of money, the clothes needed a reason to exist.
00:09:01.919 --> 00:09:10.559
One early review describes details like scenes shaped around the body and a long zipper that made a dress easier to get into without wrecking your hair and makeup.
00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:13.679
Victoria Beckham, girl power, just in a different font.
00:09:13.840 --> 00:09:16.799
That detail should tell you something about Victoria's contribution.
00:09:17.039 --> 00:09:21.759
She'd spent years wearing clothes in public and knew how she wanted them to look and feel.
00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:24.799
She had preferences, taste, and she noticed problems.
00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:30.960
And even more importantly, she could explain what she wanted a garment to do with surgical-like precision.
00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:36.320
Of course, noticing a problem and making a beautifully constructed dress are two different skills.
00:09:36.480 --> 00:09:38.639
Which brings us to the people around her.
00:09:38.879 --> 00:09:47.759
Victoria was heavily involved, but designer Roland Moray advised her, and his involvement prompted speculation that he was secretly designing the collection.
00:09:47.919 --> 00:09:50.399
An account that he relentlessly pushed back on.
00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:52.879
He described offering advice and contacts.
00:09:53.039 --> 00:10:01.919
And I want to linger here for a second because this happens a lot when a famous person enters a field that requires technical expertise, asking who did what is fair.
00:10:02.159 --> 00:10:06.960
Fashion is collaborative and customers deserve to know that there's substance behind a celebrity name.
00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:14.720
But there's also a strange assumption hiding in an idea that having an experienced person help you learn proves you aren't doing the work.
00:10:15.039 --> 00:10:21.679
And of course, a woman couldn't possibly be behind such a great vision without the help of a man.
00:10:21.919 --> 00:10:34.080
The point is, if you want to do anything and be great at it, you need to study it, eat, sleep, and breathe it, notice details that others might miss and work with the greats to learn from them and be inspired by them.
00:10:34.240 --> 00:10:34.799
So she did.
00:10:35.039 --> 00:10:40.399
These first dresses drew great reviews and retailer interest, and she accomplished her first big goal.
00:10:40.559 --> 00:10:42.879
She made a collection people could seriously examine.
00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:44.720
Then she had to make the next one.
00:10:44.879 --> 00:10:49.360
This is the bit that success stories tend to turn into like a pretty woman montage.
00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:51.279
Lovely first review, cut to award.
00:10:51.360 --> 00:10:58.080
Everybody claps, hooray! In reality, the next season arrives regardless of whether you're having an inspiring personal transformation.
00:10:58.320 --> 00:11:06.240
There are fabrics to choose and problems to solve, and the room full of people who came out of curiosity last time now has a reason to expect something.
00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:09.440
And those early reviews kept bringing up the Spice Girls.
00:11:09.600 --> 00:11:15.279
So Victoria kept making collections, getting better, slowly, more and more recognition.
00:11:15.440 --> 00:11:20.879
By 2011, her label had won Designer Brand of the Year at the British Fashion Awards.
00:11:21.039 --> 00:11:23.120
It won again in 2014.
00:11:23.279 --> 00:11:24.720
In between, the business grew.
00:11:24.879 --> 00:11:28.320
She added a second, more playful line called Victoria Victoria Beckham.
00:11:28.399 --> 00:11:34.559
In 2014, she opened a flagship store on Dover Street in London, and eventually the brand reached customers at different price points.
00:11:34.720 --> 00:11:40.720
In 2017, Victoria collaborated with Target on a collection where most pieces cost less than$40.
00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:49.120
Now, I know this seems contradictory to my earlier statement where I mentioned she didn't want to cheapen her brand by going to Target when she first started designing.
00:11:49.279 --> 00:11:55.519
But hold on, things have changed, the tables have turned, and now this made sense for her brand.
00:11:55.759 --> 00:12:00.559
Had Victoria started with Target, she very likely wouldn't have been taken seriously.
00:12:00.799 --> 00:12:08.879
By 2017, though, she had established her reputation, and the next logical step was scale and accessibility.
00:12:09.039 --> 00:12:14.399
The Target collection let a much wider group of people now take a piece home.
00:12:14.639 --> 00:12:18.639
Target later described it as one of its biggest limited time partnerships.
00:12:18.960 --> 00:12:24.240
At what point do you retire the description of her work as Spice Girl Tries Fashion?
00:12:24.399 --> 00:12:24.960
The answer?
00:12:25.120 --> 00:12:26.240
Well, it took a while.
00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:32.879
Victoria has said that while she was still showing in New York, she felt the industry had begun taking her seriously, finally.
00:12:33.039 --> 00:12:36.240
That doesn't mean every person on Earth updated their opinion at once.
00:12:36.480 --> 00:12:43.200
Some people were wearing the clothes, while others were still stuck on the mental image of her belting out, spice up your life, on a stage.
00:12:43.440 --> 00:12:46.240
But the conversation inside fashion was changing.
00:12:46.399 --> 00:12:48.720
More and more, there was actual work to talk about.
00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:50.960
Here's where the story takes a turn, though.
00:12:51.200 --> 00:12:53.279
Fashion brands are expensive to run.
00:12:53.519 --> 00:13:01.279
That may sound obvious, but it's easy to see a packed event, a gorgeous store, or a famous person wearing a dress and assume the company behind it must be doing great.
00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:09.759
So in 2017, Neo Investment Partners put 30 million pounds, that's nearly 40 million US dollars, into Victoria's business.
00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:14.480
That support gave it room to grow, and it's an important part of the story.
00:13:14.799 --> 00:13:19.759
Most independent designers just don't have access to anything like it.
00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:24.879
And even with the investment, the company went through quite a bit of financial struggles.
00:13:25.120 --> 00:13:34.080
This is where I think Victoria's story gets particularly useful for creators because we're often handed one scoreboard at a time that posted well, great.
00:13:34.240 --> 00:13:35.759
Did it bring in the right audience?
00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:37.840
The industry respects you, wonderful.
00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:40.639
Can you pay the people helping you produce the next collection?
00:13:40.799 --> 00:13:44.879
Victoria has also spoken about how people around her could be reluctant to say no.
00:13:45.039 --> 00:13:48.399
And that's a fascinating problem for someone whose name is on the label.
00:13:48.559 --> 00:13:52.320
Earlier, she needed people willing to take her ambition seriously.
00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:59.039
Once she was in charge of a growing business, now she needed people who would tell her when an idea wasn't working and push back.
00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:03.440
So in 2021, Victoria and the company's CEO described a substantial change.
00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:07.519
They planned to bring the main label and the Victoria Victoria Beckham line together.
00:14:07.679 --> 00:14:13.200
They also aimed to bring the average price point down from more than 900 pounds to around 550.
00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:18.240
That's about 1200 to 600 US dollars bargain.
00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:27.919
Now, of course, that is still an expensive piece of clothing, but it was a meaningful change within their business, and they couldn't do it by simply crossing out one number and writing a smaller one beside it.
00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:31.679
They had to revisit factories, suppliers, and how the clothes were made.
00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:36.480
By then, Victoria had spent years persuading people that her fashion label was serious.
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Now she had to be willing to change how part of that label worked.
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That's uncomfortable when your taste and your name are attached to every choice.
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So this whole time the fashion business was evolving.
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Meanwhile, Victoria had been developing another part of her world.
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She worked with Estee Lauder on makeup collections and met Sarah Creel, an experienced beauty executive and product developer.
00:14:56.559 --> 00:15:00.000
The two later launched Victoria Beckham Beauty in 2019.
00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:05.679
A genius transition because Victoria's signature smokey eye had been part of her image for years.
00:15:05.840 --> 00:15:06.879
But again, same story.
00:15:07.039 --> 00:15:09.919
Recognition only gets someone interested enough to try it.
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Her business partner brought deep product development experience.
00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:18.799
Victoria brought an archive of beauty products and detailed preferences about how she wanted makeup to look and feel.
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Their first launch focused solely on eye makeup.
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Now, I really like this detail because beauty launches can create pressure to offer every possible thing immediately.
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Eyes, lips, skin, fragrance, a candle named after your childhood feelings.
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Their first offer was narrower.
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And I think as creators, we fall into something similar where we want to be everywhere at once, every platform, writing, making video, doing all the things.
00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:47.200
But she stayed focused and that let her concentrate on doing something well.
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And it was a commercial success.
00:15:49.279 --> 00:15:50.960
Are you seeing the through line here?
00:15:51.120 --> 00:15:56.639
Okay, so have a vision, stick to it relentlessly, branch out where it feels natural, but stay focused.
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The Victoria Beckham formula, if you will.
00:15:59.600 --> 00:16:01.679
And then there was Paris.
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Paris is the final boss of the fashion world, okay?
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Victoria held her first Paris Fashion Week show in 2022.
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She'd already won industry awards, she'd shown in New York and London, but Paris was a place she really wanted to reach, and she described feeling nervous about it.
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That detail makes me like this moment even more because we tend to imagine that by the time someone has made it, they just stroll into every next room like they own the building.
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Meanwhile, here's Victoria Beckham, decades into her public life, still feeling the stakes of a first.
00:16:32.879 --> 00:16:41.039
It featured beautiful bias-cut silk dresses, delicate spaghetti straps, deconstructed tailoring satin, and lingerie-inspired body conscious aesthetics.
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And at the end of the show, our girl, a visibly overwhelmed Victoria, just broke down in tears while walking the catwalk.
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And the critics, they praised the collection for its quiet glamour.
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For me, Paris isn't proof that everyone finally agreed on Victoria Beckham.
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There's no single fashion ceremony where someone takes away your old identity and hands you a new laminated badge.
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It's a bigger room in which the work has to hold up.
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And by that point, she had put in the work.
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She had years of collections, collaborators, customers, adjustments, and hard lessons behind her.
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In results reported in 2026, Victoria Beckham's holding recorded a 7.3 million pound, that's around 9.5 million US dollars, operating profit for 2025.
00:17:24.559 --> 00:17:26.079
And here's what you didn't know.
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It was her company's first operating profit since the label began in 2008.
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This whole time, she was operating at a loss.
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Now I know that seems unusual that her company would be operating for so long, practically hemorrhaging money.
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And under normal circumstances, an independent business that bleeds cash for over a decade would face bankruptcy or liquidation.
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Victoria Beckham's company survived strictly because her and her husband, David, heavily subsidized it and external investors bought into the brand's long-term potential.
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Now I know this is this is so unrealistic, right?
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But this was Victoria's reality and this was the contacts and the resources that she leveraged over the course of her career.
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Yes, she had resources and she could keep herself afloat, but she also had people that believed in her vision.
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17 years after those 10 dresses in the hotel suite.
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Okay, back to the bag.
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So remember earlier when I mentioned Victoria in the Marc Jacobs shopping bag?
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10 years after the original campaign, she recreated that image with the same photographer for the anniversary of her own label.
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Same woman, same ridiculous idea, legs sticking out of a giant shopping bag.
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This time, the bag didn't say Marc Jacobs, it said Victoria Beckham.
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What a baddie.
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Once again, she moves in complete silence, doesn't give a speech about growth, okay?
00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:51.279
She just gives a cheeky little wink back to an earlier version of herself and she lets you figure out what changed.
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And she didn't have to get rid of Posh either.
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Her beauty brand eventually released a lipstick called Posh.
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The name could belong to her again as something that she chose to use.
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She said, Okay, you're gonna call me Posh my entire life.
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Well, I'm gonna run with it and it's gonna be on my terms.
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And that honestly feels like a way more honest version of reinvention than the one where you throw out every photograph from your old life, cut your own bangs, and announce that you're an entirely different person, right?
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Victoria was posh spice.
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That experience gave her visibility and a visual language that people still remember.
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It also meant that she had to live with people underestimating the work she wanted to do next.
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She couldn't control when every person would change their mind, but she could keep giving them new evidence.
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What I keep thinking about when I look at this story, I don't come away thinking, be patient and everyone will understand you.
00:19:40.960 --> 00:19:44.559
I keep thinking about how specific Victoria's attempts were.
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She wanted jeans that fit a certain way, so she worked on jeans.
00:19:48.240 --> 00:19:52.720
She wanted to make dresses, so she showed 10 to people who could judge them closely.
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When she moved into beauty, she worked with someone who knew how to develop the products.
00:19:56.799 --> 00:20:01.200
When her fashion business needed to change, she revisited the structure and the prices.
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There were resources available to her that most people won't have.
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Fame brought that attention.
00:20:07.599 --> 00:20:09.599
Investment bought the company time.
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It would be silly to leave either of those out and pretend that everyone can follow the same timetable.
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But I do think there's a really useful question here for anyone who has been known for one thing and wants to make another.
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What could you make next that would let the right people see the direction you want to go?
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If people know you for making funny videos and you want to make something more intimate, you have to give them a piece before they can imagine you making it.
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Some will come with you, some will need time, a few may keep asking when you're going back to the thing that they liked first.
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And that can hurt, especially when that first thing was a genuine part of you.
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Victoria Beckham's story doesn't offer a way to avoid that feeling.
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It shows what she did while other people's picture of her were still catching up.
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Thanks for hanging out.
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That's a wrap on this episode of Genes of the Blazer.
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If today's conversation gave you something to think about, a mindset shift, or just the push you needed, do me a favor.
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00:21:09.920 --> 00:21:11.440
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