Victoria Beckham: Where is everybody currently situated?

Kim Jones: I’m in London, in Notting Hill.

Tim Blanks: I’m in Maida Vale.

Victoria: We’re in Oxfordshire. We got back from Miami and then came straight here and haven’t left the house, except we’ve been going for really lovely
walks and the weather has been incredible.

Kim: I haven’t really been out that much, but I’ve got the pool and I’ve got the gym, an outdoor terrace and a garden. I’ve been keeping to myself and I quite enjoy it.

Tim: Kim, I always think of you as someone who is furiously on the go; you’re just hither and yon all the time. How hard has it been to slow down and fall into a completely different kind of rhythm?

Kim: Not at all actually. I got my house last summer and I haven’t spent much time in it, so I’ve been organizing every drawer and every box in my storeroom.
You know when I’m not working, I’ve been doing stuff that’s purposeful. But then I’m also not afraid to go to bed at nine at night and watch TV in bed and just read. I’ve enjoyed it; I’m not going to lie. I mean, my dad dying was a really horrible thing in this isolation and that was quite a weird thing to deal with, but apart from that, the rest of it has been quite nice.

Tim: Do you think you’ll be changed when you come out of it?

Kim: I don’t know if I will be changed because human beings adapt so quickly. I mean the one thing I have found funny is that my sleep pattern has been quite
erratic. One day I wake up with loads of energy and want to do tons of stuff; then the next day I’m kind of lethargic. Things change daily. Some people have become nocturnal but are getting lots of work done because it’s been so peaceful, while others have become early-morning people. You can suddenly relate to hostage situations, the way the human species adapts very quickly.

Tim: Have you been dreaming a lot? This is one of the interesting things in this crisis.

Kim: I’ve had some real horror dreams and then some really fun ones that I don’t want to wake up from.

Victoria: I am always quite a dreamer. I dream a lot, but I don’t remember them apart from when I immediately wake up or something happens during the day
that takes me back. Like Kim said, I’ve actually been quite nocturnal, which is strange for me. When we first went into lockdown with our three younger children, David and I spoke about it and we decided there was a lot of work and pressure on the children to do online schooling, and little people feel the stress as well. So mine and David’s approach was, yes, the kids have to do their work, but if they need a break or a change of scenery, then that is OK as well. They just need to feel loved and cared for; they need to smile and to laugh. That is the most important thing. They will catch up; we don’t worry about that too much. We are staying up
quite late, watching movies as a family, doing a lot of cooking together. It’s been quite nice being able to relax and enjoy each other’s company, eat late, unload the dishwasher, do normal stuff together. We have really missed Brooklyn because he’s been in America with his girlfriend, so we haven’t seen him for about 11 weeks now.

Tim: What do you think the kids are picking up from this? Any insights into what is happening all around them?

Victoria: We have tried to protect them. It’s been so confusing for all of us, what we hear on the radio, what we read, what we see on the television. So we talk about it as a family, what the future looks like. Hopefully they will come out of lockdown and say they’ve enjoyed the family time. We’ve been on lots of walks, lots of bike rides together. We are so lucky to have a garden that they can play football in. Normally they don’t always have the time to do that.

Tim: I love the idea of you all cooking and dancing and doing the dishes, it sounds like The Big Chill.

Victoria: I have to say to say it’s been great, and David is a really great cook.

Tim: What’s he been making?

Victoria: He does really great stuff, pasta… he did chicken Kiev the other night. He does quite complicated meals, but he is a very good cook. He went to culinary school when he was in Italy playing for AC Milan, so he’s quite the chef.

Kim: Does he use recipes, or has he got things he knows?

Victoria: A bit of both.

Kim: Does he get Gordon [Ramsay] on the phone?

Victoria: He does have Gordon on the phone actually! We have an Aga here in the countryside, and he was making lemon drizzle cake. And he was really
perplexed as to why it was dipping in the middle. My suggestion was that the air doesn’t circulate in an Aga quite as it would in a fan-assisted oven. So David did phone Gordon one day and he was like, ‘What the hell? My lemon drizzle cake keeps damn well collapsing.’

Tim: David and Kim should get a stall at your next village fete. I’ve heard that Kim is making Victoria sponges to a British Bake Off standard.

Victoria: I didn’t know you cooked, Kim.

Kim: I suddenly wanted to make a cake. I did it and I surprised myself, so I’ve been doing a few actually. I’m going to do a tagine this evening. It’s nice having
time to actually do things.

Victoria: Now you’re both coming out of lockdown, are you buff or not buff because you’ve been eating all your cakes?

Kim: I haven’t been eating the cakes; I’ve lost weight actually.

Victoria: Oh! How have you done that?

Kim: Well, I’ve been swimming every day and just being really strict about what I’m eating.

Tim: Victoria, you know me, buff and Blanks don’t go together.

Kim: But you’ve got your gorgeous curly locks, Tim.

Tim: My hair is now a foot high. What’s yours looking like at the moment?

Victoria: Mine? Mine is probably like everybody else’s, it’s a little unkempt, shall we say? It is quite nice not having to worry about that sort of thing. Normally, I like to make a bit of an effort when I go to work. But it’s been nice not having to do that. I mean, I’ll wear a little bit of make-up around the house, but it’s very different.

Kim: I have to say, just being able to get up and do stuff is really nice, not having that structure that otherwise there is every day. Normally when we have time off it’s like planned time off: we’ll do this, see those people, have dinner here, lunch there. So I am embracing it – I can’t do anything; it is something completely out of my control.

Victoria: I agree. When we first went into lockdown, we were going on walks in the country and the number of little animals and deer that we saw seemed quite unusual for the time of year. I said to David, ‘It feels like we’re in Jumanji, like, what is happening?!’ All of a sudden there are animals everywhere and you are really noticing it. I don’t know if they are normally there or if it is strange for this time of the year, but it has definitely given us time to think about how beautiful nature is.

Tim: What have you missed the most?

Kim: I don’t know, I haven’t really been speaking to people that much. I have been messaging people, but I don’t feel like I have that much to say. With things
like Instagram, you see what people are up to.

Victoria: To be honest, I haven’t missed anything. It’s been a real luxury to just be around David and the kids, because he normally travels so much with work.
I am looking forward to getting back to work, though. I have been doing all of our meetings in a very different way, but it’s now reached a stage where we have deadlines, and we have the pre-collection coming up. Kim, I noticed that you’ve set up a little studio in your house. I don’t have that and so I am now looking forward to getting back into the atelier and getting my hands on the next collection. It’ll be in a very different way with the team, what with social distancing. I am looking forward to that. But I haven’t missed anything, other than my dad’s birthday.

Kim: And yours!

Victoria: Yeah, it was my birthday and it was the sweetest thing: Fat Tony, who I just adore, did a virtual party for me, which was great, and we raised money
for a children’s charity. It would be nice to see friends and go for dinner…

Kim: I miss my friends; I don’t miss travelling though. I haven’t not been on a plane for two and a half months in over 15 years, so I’m really appreciating
being in one place. I’ll tell you one thing though – time goes so fast! It’s like it’s Friday already.

Tim: I do my walk, I have my breakfast, I read the newspaper, and suddenly it’s tequila time already, and it’s like, ‘What the hell happened?’

Victoria: That was my next question, what has everybody’s beverage been during lockdown? And what time is it acceptable to start drinking? Let’s start with you, Tim, because I bet I know what your answer’s going to be.

Tim: I have obviously been drinking my Casamigos. I upgraded from Reposado to Anejo. And then I found it getting quite heavy, so I’ve been drinking quite a lot of wine. Too much, actually. I know a lot of people have stopped drinking, but I enjoy it, so what the hell?

Kim: Alcohol sales have gone up like 30% in the UK. I haven’t drunk that much, maybe four times. I’m not really a drinker; I don’t enjoy it so much. I like it in a social setting, but I’m allergic to most alcohols, so it has to be a special occasion.

Victoria: I go through spells where I will stop drinking for three to six months, but I have to say, I enjoy it. I have been making the most of this time, to sit down with David, drink red wine or a vodka and tonic. I like some Don Julio, too. So yes, I have been drinking and I look forward to it, especially as the weather has been so lovely.

Kim: My last tequila incident was with you, Victoria, and I had to be carried home by my other half because my body couldn’t take it!

Tim: And I think you reintroduced me to tequila at a Christmas party at Natalie Massenet’s. It’s been downhill ever since, or uphill, whichever way you want to look at it. I didn’t realize it was so easy to have the alcohol of your choice delivered. I found one place that has dozens of tequilas. I think if the lockdown went on for another three or four years, I could probably sample them all.

Victoria: You got to enjoy it, come on!

Kim: I’ll probably have a drink tonight because I’ve got the terrace and it’s Friday and it’s lovely weather, everything is quiet. It’s enjoyable.

Tim: You said you were making a tagine. That’s slow food, isn’t it? How do you feel about slow fashion? A lot of people have been talking about how this virus arrived at a time when fashion really needed to take a long hard look at the way it was operating. Sustainability wasn’t only an issue that applied to fashion’s relation with nature, it also related to people sustaining themselves in the industry. Are you coming out of this crisis with a different perspective on issues like that?

Kim: This slowing-down thing, I don’t know how much will happen in terms of my company. I am in a large luxury conglomerate and have the support there, but it’s a tough, tough world now for independent and young designers. I would rather see them doing two really amazing collections a year that they do in four drops for big stores, so they are not overexerting themselves and overstretching themselves. Helping the clothes stay a long time in the store, I think is key. That is the way to support young designers.

Victoria: In fashion, it’s more difficult when you are a smaller company. It has been good to have this time to look at my business model and think about what it might look like in the future. Things have to change. There are so many collections; there is so much waste. My collections are small, but do we really need four a year? It has been good to have the time to really reflect, speak with my shareholders, speak with my CEO, look at different strategies, different opportunities. Kim, what do you think is going to happen?

Kim: My primary interest is independent people and the young designers, knowing things are self-funded. I don’t want to see them being crippled by this because a diversity of different points of view is so exciting. There is a lot of negativity towards fashion at the moment, but all these young brands are working
hard on sustainability and small, local networks. It is like they were trained to become the future.

Tim: What we’ve done at the Business of Fashion is facilitate an initiative called ‘Rewiring Fashion’, to support independent designers and independent retailers. So far we have had more than 1,600 signatories and what has really impressed me with the whole thing is how exciting it was for them to all be together and talking for the first time. You realized how the industry really doesn’t foster that kind of community because the conventional notion of the fashion designer is this solo creator. Except that right now, it’s so obvious that what we need is collaboration and not competition. With all these people talking to each other, you can see the
germ of something. They are going to support each other through this crisis.

Victoria: I have never been in a position where I can fly people to the other side of the world to look at a pre-collection or do these incredible sets. I have seen David watching you in Tokyo and in Miami and thought, ‘Wow, that must be incredible.’ Kim, do you think that will come back?

Kim: I think it will. After all this happens, we’ll be back because we have this drive to be back. I am very aware that what we have is a very different thing. We don’t really sell to retailers; we have our own network. But I want to help by talking to retailers I respect, who can still buy these independent designers. I had people like Lee McQueen supporting me as I was coming up, so I want to be able to do that same thing. It’s about having that facility to bounce back. I’m watching and listening, more than saying what I want to do at the moment. I hope that I can help people in the same way that I was helped.

Tim: But there is something else that is even more fundamental than any of this. The most important person in the fashion cycle is the customer. What are they are going to be looking for as this situation evolves? What are people going to want from fashion?

Victoria: At the moment, we’re all scratching our heads, thinking about the customer and the community. A few weeks ago, I thought maybe when everyone gets out of lockdown, they are going to want to put on some nice clothes and get out, because maybe they’ve been wearing stretchy leggings and elasticated waist trousers, just hanging around the house. Maybe people will want to dress up a bit more, but I don’t know. So many livelihoods and businesses have been so affected by what has happened. Are people even going to have the resources to spend on new clothes? I feel that so much is going to change and while it is great to have the time to think about it, it is also quite tormenting, because who knows?

Kim: I am very much about waiting and watching. I ask every day what is going on at work with sales and so on. China has opened up and it’s been very successful. It’s like people do want to carry on as normal after this, because people do tend to suppress things that are traumatic. For some people who have found this really hard, they will just want to bounce back to normal, but lots of people won’t be able to.

Victoria: You are lucky in that you have lots of your own stores, but my business relies heavily on wholesale accounts and they are really struggling. I mean, how many of the big stores have filed for bankruptcy? It’s so sad, isn’t it?

Tim: Designers will have to reconcile themselves to a lot of shrinkage in their businesses. They will have to remind themselves of why they do what they do, why they love what they do. At the root of it all is your relationship with your customer, that intimacy, trust and loyalty that has been eroded by what has been happening in the industry for the past while. The giantism has taken a lot of the humanity out of it. Maybe this will be a moment when people remember what fashion used to be: people made it because they loved making it and people wore fashion because they loved wearing it – and that relationship was fundamental. Maybe I’m living in a fool’s paradise, but that kind of relationship could be refreshed by this situation. If people stopped going out into the world thinking, ‘I’m
going to be a billion-dollar business’, but instead simply thought about why they love what they do and who they do it for.

Victoria: That’s something that I’m really excited about, this idea of simplifying things again. I’m tiny in comparison to Kim, but when I started it was about doing little presentations and it was 10 dresses and so much love and the passion went into it, and it was fun. Then all of a sudden, we were doing things the same way as everyone else and then came the pre-collection and the bigger collections and the bigger shows, and there is nothing wrong with that, but I almost felt in
September that I can’t compete in an environment where people have such enormous budgets to create such big shows and such big pre-collections. Maybe one day I will be in a position to do that, but I’m actually quite excited by the fact it might feel like a more even playing field when we come back. Even if you are in a position to do these things, it probably won’t be appropriate or even possible, because people can’t travel as much anyway. So everyone is going to have to make
things smaller. And that will rely on the creativity of the actual product.

Tim: Make fashion rational again.

Kim: I am experienced enough to know what things people want at certain times of the year. I look, I listen, and I talk to people. Listening is such an important part of the job, and I think that is probably why I have been successful. I like to process the information and then think about it and then do it. I tell people off if they are working too fast; I say, ‘You can’t do that, that’s not how it’s going to be.’ It’s amazing how people keep on panicking and then messing up.

Victoria: Kim, if you don’t have the pressure of the show, do you think that will reflect creatively in the collections? When you take that pressure away, surely that will ultimately result in clothes that are more wearable, no? I feel that way. I love my shows, but I also know that I wear more of my pre-collections.

Kim: I always look at the clothes as being wearable and then we inject special pieces for certain people. The last show we did in Paris, I think those clothes really needed to be seen in real life.

Tim: Victoria, are you exploring other technologies to get your message across?

Victoria: Digital is something that has interested me right from the beginning. Selling direct has always been very important and I have been looking at exploring that with other digital options, but I’m not in a position to do it right now, because it is very expensive in the way I want to do it and the execution is key.

Tim: Think about when vaudeville turned into silent movies and silent movies turned into talkies and talkies turned into television and so on and so forth, there were all these big leaps. There are so many people exploring alternatives to the way things were being done. If you break the tyranny of the fashion calendar and you find technologies that express what you want to show or tell people, there isn’t any reason why they shouldn’t just be available all the time, so there is an ongoing dialogue between you and everyone else in the world.

Victoria: I would love to do that, and I think that hopefully that is something in the future I will be in a position to do.

Kim: I think we just all have to wait. I think there will be some very good things coming out of this. It’s just how we get back to normality. We have been really strict in lockdown and then you see people going out and protesting against it, and then prolonging it. It’s a bit of a mess.

Tim: That has been a depressing thing, seeing this disease that affects everyone becoming so polarized by politics.

Kim: I don’t like talking about politics when I’m talking about work because it gets too depressing. It just shows you how people have still got a lot to learn.

Tim: But nature is always willing to teach us.

Kim: I think that’s a good note to end on.

Tim: Let’s go and have a tequila right now.

Victoria: Oh Kim, when I did the picture the other day with Juergen, it was the best photo shoot I have ever done. I blow-dried my own hair and did my own make-up, which took 20 minutes to do, then I picked up the laptop and Juergen said just go and stand outside in the garden. So I went outside in the garden and the wind blew my hair completely over my face and he was like, ‘That’s great! We’ve got a great picture.’ Honestly, I kid you not! It took two and a half minutes to get that shot. Normally you would give a whole day to do a shoot.

Kim: He sent me the picture – and you look like a movie star.