Victoria Beckham's pop flop cleared the way for her fashion label
Victoria Beckham's first solo album reportedly cost around £5 million to make and sold roughly 50,000 copies. When her next record company went bankrupt in 2004 and two unfinished albums were scrapped, she quit music for fashion. Critics expected a celebrity vanity project; within a few years her label had won British designer brand of the year.
Born Victoria Adams in Essex in 1974, she grew up comfortably; her parents ran an electronics wholesale firm, and she was so embarrassed by their wealth that she begged her father not to drop her at school in the family Rolls-Royce. Seeing the film Fame at six set her on performing, and in 1994 she answered an advert in The Stage seeking girls who could sing and dance. The group she joined, the Spice Girls, became the best-selling female group ever, with over 80 million records, and the press dubbed her Posh Spice.
Going solo proved harder. Her debut single in August 2000 lost a heavily hyped chart race, and a year later her second was outsold eight to one by Kylie Minogue's 'Can't Get You Out of My Head'. The album reached only tenth place. A 2003 double single reached number three, but then Telstar Records collapsed and the planned albums were abandoned.
Fashion had been running alongside. She walked for Maria Grachvogel at London Fashion Week in 2000, modelled for Roberto Cavalli, designed a jeans line selling for about 300 dollars, and started her own denim brand in 2006. Her eponymous label arrived in 2008, with a cheaper diffusion line in 2011, the year it was named UK designer brand of the year. By 2012 it was judged the strongest performer among the family's business interests.
She rejoined the Spice Girls for a 2007 reunion tour, reportedly earning £10 million, so her children could see her as a pop star, and performed with them at the 2012 London Olympics closing ceremony. When the group toured again in 2019 she stayed home with her label. She was made an OBE in 2017 for services to fashion.
Source: Victoria Beckham
