Victoria Beckham Has Learned to Smile

On a balmy recent Sunday, Victoria Beckham sank into a banquette at the Fasano Fifth Avenue, a fancy hotel on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, her pout a little puffier than it used to be, her slight frame sheathed in an inky silk suit of her own design. Tucked into a corner just within view was a pair of black crutches so streamlined and glossy they might have passed for an outsize accessory.

In fact, they were a testament to Ms. Beckham’s stubborn grit.

A fall at the gym this winter had hobbled her but not kept her from taking her bows on crutches at her namesake label’s runway show at Paris Fashion Week in March. Or from celebrating a milestone birthday, her 50th, at a lavish bash in London. Nor did it prevent her from hopping a flight to New York, where she had come to oversee and star in an ad campaign promoting the line of fragrances Ms. Beckham introduced last fall.

The perfumes were an expansion of the Victoria Beckham Beauty brand she started in 2019, which was itself an expansion of the Victoria Beckham fashion line she started in 2008 — when many still remembered her as Posh, the sophisticated Spice Girl who just happened to be married to the British soccer star David Beckham.

After her pivot from pop star to designer, some self-appointed critics were quick to dismiss Ms. Beckham, who grew up in Hertfordshire, England, as an unschooled Barbie from the hinterlands. Her career has given rise to plenty of speculation among fashion insiders: Is she for real? Is she selling a stake in the company to LVMH, the luxury giant? Will the business be profitable?

But Ms. Beckham is nothing if not tenacious. And 16 years after starting her brand with her husband and Simon Fuller, the creator of “American Idol,” she is more inclined than ever to dig in her towering heels.