For almost two decades, Lady Victoria Beckham has been trying to prove that she is more than simply Posh Spice. Now, her fashion and beauty business has reached a milestone many doubted it would achieve: profitability.
Victoria Beckham Holdings announced an operating profit of £7.3m for 2025 on sales up 15% to £129.8m.
The company described it as "a significant milestone", adding that growth has continued into this year with another double-digit rise in revenues.
It has taken Lady Beckham 18 years to shift her business - where she is creative director - into the black.
The former popstar admitted in a Netflix documentary that the company had once been "tens of millions into the red", with "mind-blowing" waste including a flower budget of £70,000 a year.
Lady Beckham spoke of her "panic" as the debt piled-up.
"It's been a hell of a journey. I almost lost everything and that was a dark, dark time," she said. "I used to cry before I went to work every day, because I just felt like a firefighter."
David Belhassen, founder of private equity firm Neo Investment Partners, recalled having to deliver some hard truths when he decided in 2017 to get involved with the business.
"I said 'we have to change everything, restructure the business and that's going to be painful'."
Fashion brands can be notoriously slow to turn a profit. Stacia Bedford, a course leader at the London College of Fashion, said establishing a label can take between three and five years.
"Launching a 'typical' fashion brand is enormously expensive," she said.
"Brands that do make money follow the lean startup method and keep their collections minimal. You need a lot of traction to get the attention of an investor."
The question of investment is a thorny one.
Unlike many new designers, Lady Beckham entered the industry with an international profile and substantial personal resources.
She has spoken publicly about asking husband, David Beckham, for financial help as the label struggled.
But Bedford said that just injecting money is not enough.
"Launching and maintaining a brand takes tremendous tenacity. Even if you can afford to weather the tough years, you need to be resilient enough to withstand everything else that's part of owning a business."
In Lady Beckham's case, the range also allowed her to demonstrate an enthusiasm which has become part of the brand's selling point.
During a recent interview with the magazine Women's Wear Daily, she revealed she wear tests all of the products herself and often creates items she wishes she already had in her make-up bag.
It is a strategy that's worked; according to Lady Beckham, the company sells one of its Satin Kajal eyeliners every 30 seconds.
In June, her Foundation Drops product reportedly had a waiting list of 20,000 people.
There is another, less tangible ingredient: Lady Beckham herself.
The woman who once seemed almost comically aloof has become increasingly willing to show the person behind the brand. She's been known to post videos demonstrating her beauty products – often with wet hair, seemingly filmed in her bathroom.
Lisa Maynard-Atem, a business strategy adviser, said this has been crucial.
"She hasn't abandoned the polish or aspiration that you expect from a luxury brand, but she has added personality," she said. "That creates connection and people buy into brands emotionally as well as commercially."
Maynard-Atem added that Lady Beckham's openness about the firm's struggles has also helped.
"By acknowledging the losses and some of the mistakes that were made, she makes the eventual turnaround more credible. The failure hasn't been edited out of the story. It has become part of the story," she said.
Luxury fashion remains a competitive business, and one profitable year is no guarantee of future success.
The key is to keep innovating, according to Bedford.
"Success changes with the trends and probably the biggest factor is the creative director," she said.
"Fashion is not an easy industry to enter and certainly not for the faint of heart. The founders who last are the ones who treat setbacks as information to learn and then build from, rather than something to hide."
