Victoria Beckham Hosts Intimate Lunch To Launch New Beauty Line
Beckham And CEO Sarah Creal Have “Behemoth” Big Plans For The Brand, With Scheduled Monthly Drops Of New Products And Categories.
Lid Luster Mink from Victoria Beckham Beauty | Courtesy Photo
BEAUTY AND THE FEAST — “This is nice, isn’t it?” said Victoria Beckham as she greeted her guests at The Garden at Annabel’s, where she hosted a lunch to launch her beauty line, Victoria Beckham Beauty. “It’s such a lovely way to [introduce the brand], here at Annabel’s, because it’s quite posh, isn’t it?”
Beckham cohosted the lunch with Sarah Creal, chief executive officer of the beauty brand, whom she met while working with her on the designer’s makeup collaboration with Estée Lauder.
The pair discussed their initial meeting at Beckham’s Los Angeles home. “I don’t think you expected me to be really into makeup, did you?” she asked.
“I really didn’t,” Creal confirmed. “When I walked into your dining room, what I saw was 15 years’ worth of products that she had collected. And I was, like, ‘This is either going to be totally insane or a blast.’ It’s been a blast.”
“Just to be clear, I’m intense and I know it,” joked Beckham, adding that she was “far more” obsessive about finer details like the size of pigments in eye shadows than anyone expected.
The success of Beckham’s collection for Estée Lauder was a revelation to her. “[It] really did prove to me that there is an appetite for me in the beauty industry and I knew that this was what my fashion customer wanted from me as well.”
She wasn’t wrong. After just two days on sale, pieces from the collection have already sold out. The Tuxedo eye palette and Mink Lid Lustre both sold out within hours of being released.
Among the guests were Beckham’s mother and sister, as well as her trainer Tracy Anderson, of Tracy Anderson Method fame, who had popped in to the designer’s store earlier in the day to stock up on eyeliner. “I’m obsessed with the Satin Kajal Liner in Bronze; the texture is amazing,” she told WWD. “I had to stock up because I’m not great in black and this is the most perfect, shimmery color.”
Beckham had one busy weekend: She showed her spring 2020 women’s wear collection at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office on Sunday, with guests including David Beckham, Helen Mirren, Kim Jones and Karen Elson in the front row. On Sunday night she hosted a dinner at Harry’s Bar in Mayfair, where guests including Alexa Chung, Rosemary Ferguson, Jake Chapman and Famke Janssen ate a big Italian dinner, family-style. And drank lots of wine. “Yesterday was a great day and we did have a lot of wine last night,” she said. “Then I was up at 6 o’clock this morning doing school runs, so I’m sorry for being a little bit late.”
Beckham and Creal have big plans for Victoria Beckham Beauty — Creal described the plan as “behemoth” — with scheduled monthly drops of new products and categories. Next up? Lips, with skin care, fragrance and wellness expected in the coming months. But don’t hold your breath for any antiaging products.
“It’s not about trying to make [yourself] look any different; any younger. I’m not going to be coming out with products that say that they’re going to get rid of wrinkles because I think that’s bulls–t and I think we should celebrate who we are,” Beckham said.
