Victoria Beckham bows out of New York with true style

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Feb 12, 2018

To many people, the true test of a designer is cut and line, which is what makes the latest collection from Victoria Beckham so very memorable. This was her best collection presented in New York.

The collection marked 10 years since Beckham first invited a handpicked short list of editors and buyers to view her debut collection of body conscious seductive chic cocktail dresses in Waldorf Towers. Quietly, the designer has let it be known that she will return to London in September season for her next show. Another example of the New York runways losing momentum and bold face designer names.
 
Happily, Victoria will leave New York on a design high. From her opening three looks; one trench coat worn on top of another – made in boiled diagonal wool; followed by a superb military coat-dress; and then by a swirling dropped shouldered man’s coat paired with matching duvet shopping bag in a felt worthy of Joseph Beuys.

Beckham never stages mammoth shows, though in recent seasons she has presented her ideas in a towering cut-stone building down at Battery Park for 500 people. This Sunday, instead she returned to the tradition of her earliest days, with an intimate setting inside the Beaux Art era Burden mansion on 91st street.
 
The UK designer did sent out a hoodie, but this collection was another move away form sportswear towards a more adult sophistication. There were even echoes in her cutting of Yohji Yamamoto and Balenciaga.
 
All anchored by a great array of gentlemanly shoes and made in a deep, dark color palette, where coats in mat pewter had real authority.
 
One great look – a perfectly cut hairy green alpaca military peplum coat worn over leggings with side panels and men’s shoes on model Sohyun Jung was a perfect statement of contemporary urban sophistication.
 
For evening she wowed with fluid cady paneled floor sweeping dresses; for inclement weather she proposed a rather marvelous patent leather coat.
 
“I wanted an intimate space so you could actually hear the quality of the couture fabrics,” smiled Beckham, after the collection had whispered and crackled by the audience of just 70 people.
 
And lest anyone forget – this is the season of the fake Big Cat Coat, with Victoria’s version one of the most chic – made in orange and brown chenille and cut with real aplomb. Beckham returns to the UK having won the respect of fellow designers, who regard her very much as one of their own.
 
Later in the evening, she and husband David and business manager Simon Fuller hosted a celebratory for 40 editors, including Anna Wintour and Edward Enninful, in Carbone, an Italian restaurant straight out of a Scorsese Mafia epic. 
 
“We wanted to celebrate with our friends, old and new. Not saying any of us is old. It’s quite overwhelming to see so many people I started this journey with.  New York has really embraced us, and become our second home. So this is not really goodbye, more a pause,” smiled Beckham.
 
And, so she heads back to Blighty. With fellow Brit Phoebe Philo having flown the coup at Céline, Beckham seems an even more likely destination for the creative professional woman of today. Lots for her house to look forward to in other words.