Earlier in the day, Beckham sat for an in-conversation event with Marc Jacobs at the LNP-designed store. “Marc is someone that I’ve known for a long time and someone who I’ve always really respected,” she said. “He’s supported me right from the beginning and has been a huge inspiration.” (Both fashion and pop culture fans will, of course, recall Jacobs’s seminal adverts starring Beckham in an oversized shopping bag almost 20 years ago.)
It’s been exactly a year since the three-part docuseries chronicling Beckham’s trajectory from Spice Girl to mainstay on the Paris Fashion Week calendar aired on Netflix. Not only did it allow audiences to peek behind the curtain, she feels the project was transformative for the business, too—which recently reported its first year of profitability and double digital growth. “I love the fact that the documentary really shone a light on the industry,” Beckham mused. “I think it showed my involvement with the brand and what I do as creative director of both fashion and beauty. I was very transparent about what the business has been through. And we’ve come out the other end. To be able to say we’re profitable in fashion, that’s something very rare at the moment—and something I’m very, very proud of.”
Evidently, the idea that slow and steady wins the race is paramount for VB. Case in point: the evening doubled as a celebration for Rouge Victoria, her beauty line’s sleek new lippie that took over two years to formulate. Among those who donned jewel-toned dresses and power-shoulder suiting (the kind that Fran Leibowitz herself would surely co-sign) for the big reveal were Isabel Grutman, Broadway actor Kara Young, Eva Longoria, and Daria Strokus.
Guests took their seats at pristine tables laden with hurricane candles of varying heights, silver objets décoratifs in the shape of fortune cookies, and menu cards in deep burgundy that nodded to the lipstick bullets. Beckham, too, went the bordeaux-hued route with her outfit choice. Indochine’s lip-smacking favorites such as spicy shrimp, summer rolls, and sizzling sirloin were served course by course, to a ambient soundtrack of 1990s r ‘n’ b, as the literal Bordeaux continued to flow.
By downtown New York standards, it wouldn’t be a late night—though the main courses were cleared just after 10 p.m. Beckham had a busy morning ahead, with TV appearances to film and the upcoming second and final drop of her hotly anticipated Gap collaboration to promote. Lipstick economy or not, the drop means that everyone can get a piece of the Victoria Beckham brand.