Victoria Beckham RTW Fall 2010 / NYCFW Day-05

Note to self: Make this the last lead that notes Victoria Beckham’s seriousness about this fashion thing. Hers is a celebrity-sprung collection that, in its infancy at least, is working, as indicated by its tight but ultraimpressive range of retailers, Neiman Marcus, Harvey Nichols, Corso Como, Joyce and Tsum among them. “I’ll always feel I must prove myself; that’s my personality,” Beckham said on Sunday. “But I’m happy with the way it’s been received.”

The collection Beckham showed for fall should further the delight; genuinely beautiful, it presented none of the neophyte awkwardness one might expect from a four-seasons’ new designer (and not just one with a pop star past).

Though savvy enough to ignore the word, Beckham is her own muse. She makes the clothes she’s feeling at a particular moment, and these days find her in an increasingly relaxed mood. That hardly means sweats and sneakers, but gentler renditions of the sensibly glamorous dresses that have become her personal and professional signatures.

For fall she started from a Dick Tracy inspiration, mercifully rendered not via fedora-ed-out kitsch, but with a palette of pale neutrals shot with colors Beckham fancies of the comic strip sort — rich red, emerald, sapphire — and graceful lines recalling the languid structure of the Thirties and Forties. Dresses in crepe or jersey draped this way or that across the torso; textural contrasts — lamé chiffon and dense ribbed jersey; stretch felt with wool twill — added depth to solid fields of color.

When Beckham embellished further it was sparely, with a pixillated print positioned on a diagonal, or a tone-on-tone kaleidoscope of a belt made of corded grosgrain and crystals. Just the perfect dash of spice.





























© by WWD / Photos by Giovanni Giannoni