Is Victoria Beckham about to (finally) make a killing in business?
Reports are circulating in the trade press that her fashion and beauty lines are up for sale – and sources close to the pop star-turned-fashionista tell me that it may happen.
Rather than offer a denial, one source said they are ‘always thinking about growth and future opportunities’ – rather as fellow British designer Stella McCartney did, when she sold a huge stake in her business to the French luxury giant LVMH (only to later buy it back… but that’s another story).
Another source indicated there won’t be any comment until after any sale completes, which definitely makes the plot feel thickened.
The intrigue began when the business newsletter Puck reported last Friday: ‘Victoria Beckham is indeed for sale, and the company has engaged [bankers] Rothschild & Co to facilitate a process.’
Leading beauty industry journalist Rachel Strugatz added: ‘I’d heard recently that Victoria Beckham, inclusive of its fashion and beauty businesses, was either in market or planning to go to market, but a person who’s viewed the relevant financial materials confirmed [that it is for sale].’
Strugatz went on to say that it is ‘actually a far bigger business than most people think’. ‘I’ve learned the brand is on track to hit $100 million in net sales this year; about 70 per cent of which come from its website.’
Reports are circulating in the trade press that Victoria Beckham’s fashion and beauty lines are up for sale
Famously, Victoria has struggled to make a profit and the last financials filed show a £4.8 million loss; plus loans – from her, her husband David and investors NEO – standing at £6.2 million.
The couple have been propping up the business from their personal fortunes since it launched in 2008, while investment house NEO stepped in back in 2019 with a £30 million injection. Victoria said in her recent Netflix documentary that this saved the business.
It is notoriously difficult to make money in fashion. But Victoria’s beauty business is a runaway success, with sales of online cosmetics up 24 per cent in 2024.
She sells one of her £32 eyeliner pencils every 30 seconds. And she has just launched a foundation which is causing a sensation. The Foundation Drops cost £104 for 30ml (enough to fill an egg cup). And despite the eye-watering price, eight out of the 19 shades have sold out online.
The drops have been formulated with the help of scientist and skincare brand founder Augustinus Bader and the promise is that the ‘minimalist formula’ melts into your skin.
It’s the beauty business, and not Victoria’s beloved fashion, which will be the big draw for a potential buyer.
Deals in which big brands snap up smaller ones are relatively commonplace in beauty.
In 2023, luxury house Kering bought perfumier Creed for $3.5 billion. And more recently, L’Oreal bought Kering’s beauty division for $4.7 billion.
Hailey Bieber’s make-up brand Rhode was taken over by cruelty-free cosmetics range e.l.f. (Eyes Lips Face) for nearly $1 billion earlier this year.
A spokesman for Mrs Beckham refused to comment on a potential sale.
Gwynnie: I screwed up my screen test (but I still got the job)
She may have an Oscar – but Gwyneth Paltrow candidly admits she did a ‘s***’ camera test for her return to acting in the forthcoming ping-pong movie Marty Supreme.
Even worse, the retired acting superstar was playing … a retired acting superstar.
In the film, based on the life of table tennis champion Marty Reisman, Paltrow is movie star Kay Stone, who has a fling with Marty (Timothee Chalamet). I’m told that there are three ‘awkward’ love scenes between Paltrow, 53, and Chalamet, 29, in it.
The actress, who based her portrayal on Grace Kelly, said: ‘I was really nervous when we did the camera test. I was s***. I hadn’t been in front of a camera in so long. I felt very self-conscious — and very happy that I had the costumes and hair and stuff, because it helped ground me.’
Paltrow hadn’t acted in seven years and joked that she only went back to it because her children — Apple and Moses — had now left home.
The film is out on Christmas Day, and there is already a lot of buzz around it, particularly Chalamet’s performance.
British pair take on a legendary quest… a live-action Zelda film
British newcomers Bo Bragason, 21, and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, 17, will play Princess Zelda and hero Link in the much-anticipated The Legend Of Zelda live-action film, which has just started shooting in New Zealand.
Bragason, born in Chichester but raised in Belgium, had a role in The Jetty and was the sister of one of the abused schoolgirls in Three Girls. She was also in the Sky vampire comedy The Radleys. Her mother lives in Knutsford, Cheshire, and has a furniture business.
Co-star Evan Ainsworth went to drama school in Hull and got his break, aged ten, playing a schoolboy in Emmerdale. More recently he voiced the title character in Disney’s live-action Pinocchio.
The Legend Of Zelda is one of the biggest video games ever made – Nintendo says it has sold 150 million copies on various platforms since the franchise launched in 1986.
The film version will come out in the spring of 2027.
A Minecraft Movie, based on the hugely popular computer game and starring Jason Momoa and Jack Black, was a smash hit earlier this year.
The curious case of the missing Knives Out murder victim
Is there a cadaver-shaped plot hole in Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man?
The film – the third in the murder-mystery series featuring Daniel Craig as Southern-fried private eye Benoit Blanc (centre right) – is out next week in cinemas, and streaming on Netflix from December 12.
No spoilers, but having seen (and greatly enjoyed) it at the BFI London Film Festival last month, I think that we are one dead body short at the end of the movie.
After Barbenheimer… are we going to have The Moana-ssey?
Chris Nolan’s epic The Odyssey is out next summer and has set a release date of July 17. Disney is also shooting for the high summer audiences with its epic tale of adventure: a live-action Moana. That is pencilled in for July 10, but things can change.
In 2023, Barbie and Oppenheimer opened on the same date, leading to a phenomenon where cinema-goers binged both in a single day.
Oh, dear. Black Bear, the distributor for Christy, the new Sydney Sweeney boxing film, has declined to report its box-office tally for week two after its horror debut in North America, taking a meagre $1.6 million.
The Running Man whiffed last weekend as well. Cue the pundits lining up to blame everything from IP fatigue (audiences getting bored of over-exploited ‘intellectual property’) to poor marketing and the story being ‘too male’.
Thank heavens for Wicked: For Good, which opens this weekend and is expected to take $200m globally.
You can’t buy a Vogue cover but… This week it was announced that Jeff and Lauren ‘Sanchez Bezos’, as they are now calling themselves, are the primary donors who are making the Met Gala possible this year.
The glitzy event is, of course, run by Vogue’s Anna Wintour, who obligingly put the Amazon boss and his bride on the digital cover of her magazine when they married in June.
How lee cleaned up selling a load of Red Rum
It sounds like one of his far-fetched fabrications on the panel show Would I Lie To You?, but Lee Mack says that when he was a stable boy at Ginger McCain’s yard he used to shift manure by claiming it was Red Rum’s.
Mack said that after leaving school at 15, he ended up mucking out at the stables, which were home to the legendary steeplechaser (pictured with McCain) – the only horse to win the Grand National three times.
‘I used to go door to door, selling horse manure: 50p a bag. They’d say: “No, we’re all right, thanks.” Then I’d go: “It’s not any horse manure… it’s Red Rum’s horse manure.” ’
He added: ‘It might have been! Some of it will have been. But a lot of it probably wasn’t.
‘And they’d go: “Stay there – I’ll get my 50p.”’
