Emma Johnson: Sporty Spice anyone? Im not won over by Victorias new direction - Liverpool Daily Post

EYES down, look in ladies and gentlemen, Fashion Week season has arrived.

For the next few weeks, the press will be awash with pictures of hollow-eyed models and celebrity-stuffed front rows.

It all kicked off last weekend in New York, and by the time you read this more than 70 designers will have paraded their spring/summer 2012 collections through Mid-Manhattan with London Fashion Week set to start tomorrow.

Marchesa, Oscar de la Renta, J Crew, Marc by Marc Jacobs and Edun drew starry crowds but, at the time of writing, the weeks hottest ticket had been the unveiling of Victoria Beckhams latest collection.

The new mum chose New Yorks Public Library (scene of Carrie and Bigs ill-fated nuptials in the first Sex and the City movie) to show her new range and, featuring silk hoodies, tennis frocks and racer necks and backs, it was a marked departure from her previous lines of tried and tested ladylike fitted dresses. Less Posh, more Sporty, Spice, if you like.

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The collection wowed the critics but, whisper it now, I am not sure I like it.

Where in previous years I have been blown away by Victorias designs, I found this range (barring that divine white number, pictured left,) a bit graduate fashion show.

When VB first announced plans to launch her own high end label, I confess I was among the doubters.

However, she pulled it off.

Her dresses to date have been elegantly sexy and she has successfully parlayed her pop career into a credible fashion one.

Where once she was derided for her fashion choices (remember the Cavalli and World Cup days?), Victoria Beckham is now seen as not just a style icon but a style maker.

Elle Macpherson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet and Oprah are among her celebrity fans.

I dont picture any of them donning her cocoon silk hoodies or leather baseball caps on a red carpet any time soon.

And what is this obsession with grosgrain?

I realise that, had Victoria just shown another array of corseted dresses, she would have been lambasted for playing it safe, but to me this all seemed a bit utilitarian, a bit nineties.

Thankfully, Victoria had another fashion trick up her sleeve in New York.

Just 48 hours after showing her mainline collection, she revealed another range of dresses across town.

Just dont call it a diffusion line: It's not a second line, or a diffusion line it's another line, another side to my wardrobe, she insists.

I dont care what we have to call it, I love it.

And not just because it is a little bit more affordable. Short loose dresses, bows, cat prints, fluffy cloud prints . . . it was pretty, cute, wearable and fresh without being too try-hard.

Speaking of try-hard. Did you see the bow amid the tufts on baby Harper Sevens hair for her first visit to Prada? Oh, Victoria, I expected better of you.

Put one of Davids hairbands on her and we are finished.


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