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Victoria Beckham prefers masculine scents such as tobacco and suede. “Mine and David’s favorite flower is hyacinth. And I love honeysuckle,” she says. At home, she favors candles, but not lavender. “There have been too many cheap plug-ins in my past.” Founded in personal experiences, the debut scents from her eponymous brand are the antithesis to that memory.
Launching this month, the three genderless eau de parfums have been handcrafted by perfumer Jérôme Epinette (his other work includes Byredo s Sundazed and Phlur s Apricot Privee). “I spent a lot of time with him. I started with the stories and built the fragrances around them.”
Each perfume distills the notes the designer associates with eras in Beckahm s well-documented life. Poured into chic flacons, they come with intriguing names: Portofino ’97, Suite 302, and San Ysidro Drive. Today, cozied up on her west London studio’s supersized sofa in a voluminous turtleneck and thigh-high boots, she is wearing the latter. Crisp and energizing, San Ysidro Drive is named after the Beverly Hills road the Beckham family relocated to in 2007. She recalls, “It was a time of healing. It reminds me of Malibu and hiking and surfing with the kids. The life we had there.” Memory-based fragrances are not a first, but with Beckham it’s different.
As a fixture in pop culture for the last three decades, her recollections are ours. We remember when she moved to LA and how that phase in her life and style was reflected in the spirit of the time. We relate. The decadent Suite 302 – its name imagining an ideal hotel suite in Paris – conjures the ambience of whirlwind trips to the French capital with David, prompting flashbacks to early-2000s tabloid shots. “I remember wearing a leopard basque with a purple lace miniskirt coming out of The Ritz, being chased by paparazzi,” she says. “It was opulent. It was glamorous.”
As a girl, Beckham would collect empty Chanel No 5 bottles donated by her mother’s friend. “In the ’80s, I would watch my mother at her vanity before her dinner parties. I think that’s where my love of beauty and fragrance started.” Shortly before forming the Spice Girls, she had a job on the perfume floor at House of Fraser in Lakeside Shopping Centre. “I had to stand there all dressed up spraying [the fragrance] Champagne on Christmas shoppers,” she recalls, referring to the Yves Saint Laurent scent now known as Yvresse. To this day, she always accepts a spray from the designated department store spritzer.
In 2005, the Beckhams spearheaded the Y2K boom in celebrity perfumes, and though she discontinued hers after a few years, “It was so phenomenally successful that it enabled me to stop working with other brands and start up my own.” In 2008, she founded her luxury fashion house Victoria Beckham. “I think people feel like they have been part of our story,” she says. “They remember us sitting on the thrones when we got married. They remember when we had Brooklyn. They’ve been on that journey with us.” This July, they celebrated their 24th wedding anniversary.
Appropriately, their early courtship is captured in the euphoric Portofino ’97. Three months into dating, they’d booked a room at Splendido, the legendary clifftop hotel. “I remember David lying on the bed, and I opened up the doors that overlooked the sea, and it was so breathtaking. I had never experienced anything like it before. I will never, ever forget that,” she says, followed by a mischievous smile. “It was very sexy.”
Victoria Beckham fragrances launch 29 September. Join the waitlist at Victoriabeckham.com.
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