What you need to know
Victoria Beckham’s fashion brand of the same name may have some famous fans, but the business came dangerously close to coming to a halt after she and husband David Beckham analyzed their books and found they were “tens of millions of dollars in the red.”
The Spice Girl, 51, opened up about her brand’s impending closure in the three-part Netflix documentary series ‘Victoria Beckham’, and how having David as her business partner has increased the pressure on her to keep it from failing.
“I lost almost everything and it was a very dark time. I felt like a firefighter and cried every day before going to work. I was tens of millions in the red,” she revealed.
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The designer continued. “Yes, I’m going home to my husband, but I’m also going home to my business partner. So I was going to talk to him about it. I had to. He was invested. And I hated it. I absolutely hated it.”
David explained that talking to Victoria about her business failure had “hurt” him because she is a “proud woman”. He also pointed out that Victoria was making more money than him when they met, which made it even more difficult to tell her that she could no longer invest.
“She was much wealthier than I was. In fact, she bought our first house in Hertfordshire, known as Beckingham Palace,” he said. “So she had to come to me and say, ‘Can you give me some money? I need some more money. The business needs more money.’ It was tough for both of us because I didn’t have the money to continue this. And in the end I thought, ‘This can’t continue.’
Not giving up, Victoria turned to outside investors to save the business and later found David Belhassen as a business partner.
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“Victoria wasn’t just looking for a partner to provide funding,” the investor recalls. “She needed a partner who understood the business, understood her dreams, and could make them a reality…Frankly, I’ve never seen anything so difficult to fix.”
After initially evaluating the numbers, Belhassen turned down the investment opportunity, leaving Victoria “completely heartbroken”.
The designer got a second chance after Belhassen dated his wife.
“My wife and I went out on a Saturday night and I saw her looking amazing. And I said, ‘What are you wearing?’ ‘Victoria Beckham.’ I said, ‘Do you buy a lot of Victoria Beckham?’ And she said, “Ton.” I love it. It’s amazing,” he recalled. “Then it lit a fire. It was like a fire. And on Monday, I got my team together and said, ‘We have to do it. If we fail, we fail.'” So we signed. I remember her getting very emotional and saying, ‘I won’t let you down.’ ”
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To save the brand, Belhassen told Victoria the “painful” truth: she needed to be willing to “change everything” and “rebuild the business” to survive. Victoria welcomed the honesty and “took it on the chin.”
“Part of the problem was that people were really afraid to say no to me,” she explained. “People thought I wasn’t used to hearing the word ‘no.’ I threw my hands up and took responsibility for the things I should have done, the things I could have done differently, and the things I was in debt with. There were a lot of things that needed to change. I realized I had lost my way.”
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At the London premiere of the documentary series, Victoria walked the red carpet with David and their children Romeo, Cruise and Harper. Her eldest son, Brooklyn, did not attend.
For the occasion, Victoria wore an all-white look with a long pencil skirt, white top and white blazer. Other members of the family also looked fashionable in black and white coordination.
Victoria Beckham will be available on Netflix from October 9th.
