All happy couples remember the moment
they first locked eyes. Victoria Beckham
famously met her husband, David, in the Manchester
United players’ lounge in 1997. More than 20 years later,
over a mountain of empty, archived makeup products
piled in the dining room of her Beverly Hills home,
Beckham would glance across the table at the woman
with whom she would start her namesake beauty line.
“She is the most impressive person that I’ve ever met
in the beauty space,” Beckham says of Sarah Creal, a
veteran product developer tasked in 2016 with bringing
to life Beckham’s wildly popular capsule collections
created with Estée Lauder. Creal, whose credits include
Prada’s beloved, short-lived cosmetics line, was similarly
impressed. “I just believed in her, in her vision,” says
the 49-year-old blonde, who left corporate life and
joined Beckham as the cofounder and CEO of Victoria
Beckham Beauty in January. Both women describe the
endeavor as a start-up. (Fittingly, the brand operates
out of a WeWork in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood.)
“Innovation and speed: These
are the things we’re going
after,” Creal explains, adding
that she is constantly telling
her seven-person team that
“perfection is not innovation.”
It’s also not an idea that
Beckham wanted to bring to her newest and most nimble
category: a digitally native brand extension that just
launched with a focus on eye makeup.
There aren’t many start-ups whose cofounder has the
kind of sway that Beckham does. When she announced
the venture via Instagram back in February, the post
generated more than a million views—and product
requests from fans that ranged from a “good” light-brown
mascara to inclusive shade offerings. And when an
ambitious, sustainable packaging plan took a slight left
turn as Beckham and Creal realized that the black
glass they had sourced for their Lid Lustre pots was
not reliably recyclable, Beckham conferred
SHADOW PLAY
“MOST PEOPLE ASSOCIATE
ME WITH A SMOKY EYE,”
BECKHAM SAYS OF THE
STARTING POINT FOR
THE FIRST DROP FROM
VICTORIA BECKHAM
BEAUTY. PHOTOGRAPHED
BY BOO GEORGE.
BEAUTY
Owning It
With legions of
women clamoring for
her makeup and
wellness secrets,
Victoria Beckham is
(finally) giving the
people what they want
with her first in-house
beauty brand.
BEAUTY>108
VLIFE
106 OCTOBER 2019 VOGUE.COM
