This article is part of our Vogue Business Membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to Member-only reporting and insights, our NFT Tracker and TikTok Trend Tracker, weekly Technology and Sustainability Edits and exclusive event invitations, sign up for Membership here.
During lockdown, Victoria Beckham looked back on all of her brand’s shows, both in New York and London, since it launched in 2008. “I wished that I’d enjoyed that process more,” she recalls. “It’s not that I never enjoyed it at all, but you get so caught up in the pressure and the nerves. So I promised myself: ‘If I am lucky enough to do another show I am going to try and enjoy every single moment of it.’”
Today, Beckham will make her Paris Fashion Week debut. When we catch up a few days pre-show, the designer is seated alongside Marie Leblanc, the label’s CEO, and speaking from her house in London. “It will be a flag in the sand moment for the brand,” she says. “It’s time to flex my muscles.” So, what exactly is the new direction this flag in the sand is marking?
The appointment comes at a pivotal time for the business, which is eyeing global growth and further innovation in the clean beauty space.
The answer begins with Leblanc, whose former employers include Printemps, Celine and Sonia Rykiel, and whom Beckham appointed CEO in September 2019. I drop the obvious girl power gag, and Beckham hits back: “I like to work with smart people, men or women: whoever is best at the job. It just so happens that a lot of the time that we are better!” Together the two women have overseen a root-and-branch overhaul of the Victoria Beckham brand. Its ultimate aim is to reverse the fortunes of a business whose struggles to achieve profitability have long been reported with tangible schadenfreude by the British tabloid press.
“Building a profitable business is at the core of our thinking,” Leblanc says. She does not share current sales, but says the brand is targeting £50 million in revenue for 2022 and a breakeven EBITDA.
Today’s show will be a crucial litmus test of a plan first laid four seasons ago. Then, the company merged the main Victoria Beckham collection and the diffusion line VVB, with the whole offer transforming to a lower overall price point. The company, which has 100 employees, has also completely overhauled its design team. Leblanc says that around 35 per cent of its sales are direct-to-consumer, and it has around 200 wholesale accounts. “It hasn’t been easy,” says Leblanc of implementing the new strategy. “We had to review all our operations and our end-to-end processes from our sourcing and manufacturing to our final consumer. And with Brexit, we had to rethink our supply chain efficiencies in the meantime. All this during Covid, when like everyone else we had to constantly adapt our way of working.”
Leblanc notes that the company has seen double-digit growth in sales since the restructure. Privately held, Victoria Beckham, the brand, is owned as a joint venture by Victoria and David Beckham and Simon Fuller’s XIX Entertainment. In 2017 it received reportedly £30 million in private equity backing from NEO Investment Partners. Veteran fashion executive Ralph Toledano, a partner in the fund, is Victoria Beckham’s chairman. Says Leblanc: “He is a reference in the industry. He brings a great wealth of knowledge and experience. Together we are working closely on taking the business to its potential.”
Running a brand whose creative figurehead brings so much attention — there is ongoing tabloid attention on the Beckham dynasty — comes with its own challenges. “We have high exposure and high expectations,” says Leblanc. Beckham brings her own front row, and today will undoubtedly be no exception.
Once eyes turn to the runway, we will see a Jane Howe-styled collection that Beckham says represents “a very feminine and delicate” iteration of the brand, with a “strong focus” on dresses. “For a while, we veered away from that to emphasise wardrobe,” she adds. “And, while that wardrobe is still there — we know we are dressing women for work, and there’s that integration with tailoring — I’m excited about the dresses.” Why in particular? “Because for God’s sake, let’s just get dressed up.” Her design team, she says, has injected a fresh attitude to her project. “I think the collection will engage us with a new category and a new customer. I think we’ll get a younger customer.”
At the beginning of this month, Beckham launched a new line of leather goods designed to align with the broader shift in the brand’s positioning. Leblanc says it is too early to share sales figures, “but we are very pleased with the sell-in”. The season ahead will see the company target expansion in the Middle East, where Leblanc says there is “strong appetite” for the brand, and Asia, which currently accounts for 10-15 per cent of total business. “Geographic expansion with the amplification of the brand community are our immediate priorities,” she says.
Separate but connected to Victoria Beckham the fashion brand is New York-based Victoria Beckham Beauty, which launched in 2019. Beckham says it is very successful but does not offer figures. Leblanc says that “fashion is a platform for beauty” and adds that the two entities are actively discussing collaborative strategies and synergies.
Beckham is determined to enjoy today’s Paris debut for the brand. Yet, she adds, pre-show nerves always strike before a show. Surely, though, that queasy feeling is not dissimilar to stage fright? “It’s been a while since I’ve been on the stage! I’m going to be nervous, but it's a positive nervous energy. We’ve spent the last few years putting this team and the plan together. I feel really lucky, as an independent brand, to be able to show in Paris,” she says. Adds Leblanc: “I think we can put our foot on the gas now. And that is what we are going to do.”
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
More from this author:
Moncler CEO Remo Ruffini on fortune, the future — and why he doesn’t want to be defined by fashion
Jewels, cool and ‘spice’: Rhuigi Villaseñor reveals his ingredients for the new Bally
Willy Wonka of Williamsburg: Inside KidSuper’s 10,000-square-foot creative factory
