Victoria Beckham’s brand new Netflix documentary series is designed to promote her fashion business but the show’s editors have cut all the fun out of it
In high end fashion, as we learn in Victoria Beckham’s Netflix documentary, so much of what is created is down to tiny details.
The precise cut and tailoring of the material before it is worn on the catwalk, counts for everything.
So it is a real shame Victoria’s new three part Netflix series does now share these same skills when it comes to the cutting together and editing of the footage compiled over a year spent with its subject.
It’s pretty clear from watching it that Team VB saw this as a great opportunity to sell the fashion and makeup brands and also tell the business story on their own terms. Yes it had lost millions of pounds but things had changed and the business was now a success.
But it would have been possibly to tell this story with more fun, more laughs, and more of a look back over her life too. The balance is off. Where is the spice and the fun?
Speaking to some Netflix insiders today, I’m led to believe there was plenty of spicy stuff and lots more jokes and light-hearted moments between David and Victoria that were filmed. But they weren’t fashioned into useable segments and instead lie on the cutting room floor.
The choice of talking heads and friends to speak in the film is also telling. Yes, having Vogue megaboss Anna Wintour is great from a fashion point of view and makes sense. But having a number of other fashion faces and no other Spice Girls talking seems odd when you have a three part series about the life of Victoria Beckham. Literally Posh Spice.
This three parter misses the point that viewers want and need to be entertained too. What fans really, really want is some more laughs and nostalgia.
Of course when she promoted this series Victoria said she was “defined by when she was in the Spice Girls” and makes the point it is only four years of her life, whereas her fashion brand is now two decades old. I take this point too. But we could have heard more about family life, child birth, amazing parties they’ve had or milestones in her life.
Even the fashion side of things seemed quite surface level, with the climax of the series around a giant Paris show and the worry it might rain.
I have watched films about the great Lee McQueen and seen how hands on he was with designs and I got a real sense of his genius and how he would get inspiration for designs and then turn them into a reality on the Alexander McQueen catwalks.
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Victoria admits she does not sketch, but it would have been lovely to have been in some meetings where she had an initial idea with her team, and then see some designs were put on paper or a laptop and fabrics discussed before the finished product was on the catwalk. So we could see how she creates her designs and just how hard she works. She and David mention this a lot and I have no doubt Victoria is a grafter like her dad, we just didn’t really see this on screen. We need to see the reality of her still working at 1am or with bags under her eyes after a 14 hour shift reworking a design with her team.
For this series to be a huge success, there was a delicate balance that had to be met between fun and anecdotes at home with the Beckhams, mixed with the story of her fashion business and how it has become a major player with Anna Wintour’s seal of approval. But the editor and executive producers haven’t managed it.
The one positive is after reading the reviews Victoria may want another stab at showing the ‘real’ her and some more humour and fun on screen. Perhaps we will get a third Beckhams doc series from Netflix set in their Cotswold home. I wouldn’t bet against it.
