The Beckham empire is a tangled web of family and fortune. After her Paris fashion week show on Friday evening, Victoria Beckham talked backstage about Tamara de Lempicka, the Polish art deco portrait painter from whose palette she took the glowing colours and sinuous lines of this season’s coral and jade party dresses. Strictly no mention of the other story of the night – the absence of her estranged eldest son, Brooklyn, from a front row packed with the rest of the Beckham clan.
The designer’s husband, David Beckham, brought her a fortifying glass of red wine as she spoke to reporters. “I relate to Tamara de Lempicka as a strong woman, and to how she conducted herself. She stuck to what she believed in.”
In her professional life, Beckham is having a good year. Her label, which four years ago was about £54m in debt and at risk of closure, has turned around, due in part to successful expansion into makeup and beauty, which has smartly allowed her to leverage the appeal of her brand name among consumers who cannot afford a £1,500 coat. Beauty is now a larger part of the business than fashion, but fashion sales are also now in profit. Sales across fashion and beauty grew 19% to more than $170m in 2025, while operating profit quadrupled from the previous year.
Store openings in New York and Paris are planned for later this year, adding to the flagship boutique in London, despite a blow served by the collapse of the Saks department store business, which was Victoria Beckham’s biggest retail partner in the US.
David Belhassen, Beckham’s investment partner since 2017, told Womenswear Daily this week that the brand was down “a few million” as a result.
A navy greatcoat with a low-slung martingale half-belt opened the show, worn over a trouser suit. Many of the looks were sober, neutral tailoring. The designer’s own outfit, which is always one of the most widely seen images of the night, was a trouser suit. “I love how a great pocket on a trouser enhances the silhouette, and helps shape the waist,” she said. “Also, I love having pockets. I’m a pocket queen. And my clothes are always connected to what I desire for myself.
But there were party clothes, too: iridescent dresses, backless ribbed knits and lavishly embroidered skirts.
The brand has benefited from increased awareness in the US, where the Beckhams have until recently been notably less famous than they are in the UK. The red cards and wonder goals of the 1998 and 2002 World Cups went largely unnoticed by an American population in which men’s “soccer” was at the time a niche interest, but David Beckham’s success with Inter Miami, and a Netflix documentary following Victoria Beckham’s business, have boosted their profile beyond the recognition gained from David’s stint with LA Galaxy.
