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LOS ANGELES -- It's her first time going for drinks at
the Chateau Marmont, but she negotiates the dark staircase up to the
lobby like a pro, using the kind of sidestep one has to perfect when
4-inch Balenciaga heels are everyday footwear.
"Beckham, is it?" the bar hostess asks in a feeble attempt to act nonchalant.
It's
no use. There is just no way not to notice Victoria Beckham. She's
dressed in a black bandage dress by Herve Leger, her legs tanned the
color of an Hermes Birkin. The pear-shaped diamond ring on her finger
has to be the biggest bauble in Hollywood, or maybe it just looks like
it on her child-size frame.
She strides into the garden, taking
a table in the middle of the action. Settling in for her first sit-down
interview since her husband, David, signed a deal potentially worth
$250 million to play with the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League
Soccer, she orders Champagne and asks if it would be all right if she
keeps her sunglasses on.
This
week, the Beckhams and their three boys were moving into the
$22-million, 13,000-square-foot Italianate house they bought in Beverly
Hills. ("I didn't want anything too big and ostentatious," she says, by
all indications being serious.)
But for months, every detail of
their arrival has been engineered to build buzz. The Beckhams hit the
Oscar party circuit in February, then announced plans for a reality
show in March, which Victoria began filming in May, popping up at
various L.A. locations -- always with a film crew in tow and always in
a head-turning get-up.
Unlike most celebs, she doesn't dress
down in slouchy T-shirts, flip-flops and jeans. Beckham dresses, really
dresses, for every occasion.
Her style isn't classic and it
isn't driven by trends. It's daring, at times silly, and British at
heart -- think Princess Diana, who wore Moschino to meet the Italian
president, Escada to Germany and Chanel to France, or the queen, with
all those wonderful hats at Ascot.
"I don't want to change the
way I dress," she says between nibbles of strawberries soaked in
balsamic vinegar. "This is me, and if people like it, great."
But
in many ways, she's already gone L.A. She's highlighting her brown hair
blond, launching her own denim line, promoting her own reality show,
decorating a house in the hills and gearing up for a reunion tour with
her old band, the Spice Girls.
Did she miss even one stereotype?
Well, she doesn't have a stylist -- yet.
"I
get quite bored with the way people look the same all the time, with
the same makeup and the same outfit and the same kind of hair. I like
to change things around quite a bit," she says, explaining that she
works with stylists for magazine shoots only. But for personal
appearances, "I prefer to do it myself."
She's worn nearly every
designer you can think of and she's kept everything -- the red Roland
Mouret dress she wore to the Costume Institute ball at the Met, the
white Alaia Academy Awards gown fitted by the master himself in Paris
as a birthday present from David, even her Spice Girls costumes.
"Victoria is a true fashion lover," Mouret says. "She will never say 'no' to trying an outfit."
Beckham, 33, has loved fashion since grade school.
"I
tried to customize my school uniform, because I went to a very strict
Church of England school. I used to get sent into the toilet every
single day at school to take off my makeup and brush my hairspray out.
"My
hair was so big in the 1980s," she continues, "I went to the theater
once and the person behind asked if I could flatten my hair because
they couldn't see."
Olivia Newton-John in "Grease" was an
inspiration. "Remember when she wore those tight black satin trousers?
One of my mom's friends promised me those and she never came up with
the goods. I still look at her and say, 'You cow!' You should never
promise a child something and not come up with it."
So she's designed a pair for the holiday collection of her dVb line.
Her
sunglasses, in stores since April, are based on vintage styles inspired
by Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Onassis and Farrah Fawcett. And now they're
being worn by some of today's most stylish women, who happen to be
Beckham's pals, including Katie Holmes, Elle Macpherson and Jennifer
Lopez.
"This is just the beginning," she says. "I want to still
be doing this in 20, 30, 40 years' time. I was never going to be the
best singer or dancer or actress. I worked hard at it and I did a
pretty good job. But with fashion, I'm good at it."
