40ish & Figuring It Out

Becoming Posh, Becoming Herself

• Katie Koelliker • Season 1 • Episode 3

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A black dress, a front-row seat in Milan, and a decade-long lesson in how to turn scrutiny into fuel—this conversation dives into Victoria Beckham’s first documentary episode and why her story hits so hard for anyone 40-ish and ready to rewrite the script. We trace her path from the awkward kid who found belonging on a stage to the woman who learned that silence could be armor and craft could be liberation, shedding the WAG label and building a name that stands in ateliers, not tabloids.

We revisit the Spice Girls era not as nostalgia, but as a study in identity design: how “Posh” became a protective persona and an early sketch of a designer’s eye. Then we follow the Milan lightning-bolt moment, when fashion shifted from costume to calling. Along the way, we unpack the press machine that framed her as cold and joyless, and the choice to meet that narrative with precision instead of noise. The episode highlights the grind behind the glamour—mentorship from Roland Mouret, perspective from Anna Wintour, Tom Ford, and Donatella Versace, and the patient work of fittings, edits, and castings that transformed skepticism into respect.

What emerges is a set of clear takeaways: public perception is often fiction; you get to define your identity at any age; reinvention is a practice, not a pivot; and being soft at home while steel in public isn’t fake, it’s survival. We also talk through the emotional resonance for women navigating midlife—labels that shrink, roles that flatten, and the courage to build a life that fits your form. If you’re searching for your own Milan moment—the spark that tells you where you belong—this is your nudge to follow it and do the work that proves it.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hey friends, welcome back to 40 ish and figuring it out, the podcast where we talk about growing up, glowing up, breaking cycles, taking naps, and occasionally deep diving into pop culture icons who shaped our entire personalities without permission. I'm your host, Katie Collicker, and today we're talking about her, Victoria Beckham. We're talking about her three-episode documentary that's on Netflix, and today we're going to be talking about episode one, Who Does She Think She Is? And honestly, she thinks she's that girl, because she's absolutely correct. I wanted to cover this documentary because watching Victoria Beckham open up felt like watching a woman in her 40s quietly reclaim her narrative. And if there's anything I am here for at this stage of life, it's a reclamation, a renaissance, a rebrand, uh don't call it a comeback because I never left moment. As I enter this fabulous 40 window where you suddenly care deeply about your identity and your skincare and your peace, Victoria felt like the perfect place to start the conversation. One of my favorite parts about Victoria's story, and in the documentary, it touches on beautifully, is where she actually started. Victoria was not the cool girl. She was not the popular girl, not the confident girl. She was that kid who felt different, who didn't fit in, who was painfully aware of the fact that she was awkward, and I can relate. She talks about being bullied in school, feeling out of place, feeling like she didn't belong anywhere. And if you've ever been the kid who ate lunch in the bathroom stall, or a girl pretending she didn't care that no one invited her, you get it. And I can feel that. And then one day she sees the musical called Fame. In her words, she remembers watching the performers on stage and thinking, that's where I belong. That's where people like me go. That moment changed her life and it gave her direction, a dream, and a way out. It's really fun to see her interactions with her parents and her family, where she grew up, the house that they lived in that her dad basically built, um, that they still live in to that they still live in today. You fast forward a few years, um, she's in dance school, performance training, grinding harder, then people give her credit for, and then boom, she auditions for a girl group that would change the entire world. The Spice Girls weren't just a band, they were a cultural reset. It was about girl power, platform boots, and friendship as a brand. And Victoria, she became posh spice, the fashion forward, sleek, mysterious one, the one who stood a little straighter, the one who didn't belt the big notes, but didn't need to. She brought a whole vibe. And honestly, every friend group has a posh, and if you don't know who it the posh of the group is, it might be you. In the documentary, they talk about how each of the girls weren't really into fashion, and so that left money for Victoria to go and spend more money on wardrobe because the other girls were spending less money on their outfits, and so the money that had been allotted for this girl group, uh Victoria Poshspice was the one that was using the money. So there's this moment in episode one where she talks about going to Milan for fashion week. It was something that she was able to do separate from the group, and it was just her, and it was kind of a chef kiss of defining identity moment. And here she is, this forward awkward kid, a tabloid target, and she's suddenly sitting at a runway show realizing this is what I want, this is where I belong. And before the show, she went to a Versace store because the show she was going to was for Versace. They sent a private plane for her and everything, and um, they let her go to the store beforehand and buy anything that she wanted. And they have, I mean, all these fashion icons that are in the documentary, including Donatella Versace, who talks about this defining moment where Victoria talks about this from her side as well, where she picks out this black dress and she decides to, you know, what would look better on this dress, and she basically alters the dress to fit her body better. And it's a very iconic moment for those of you that have seen pictures of her in this um black, like leather dress with little tiny straps on her arms. Um, that is a dress that she basically transformed into that dress, but it was a Donatella Versace, it was a Versace dress. Um, she wore that to the fashion show. She's at the fashion show and she's decided that this is what she wants to do. This is something that she's interested in and that she might be good at. And it hits her like a lightning bolt that fashion wasn't just a hobby, it was wasn't something that she just wore, it was something that she felt in her. She felt drawn to it. And that Milan moment was the birth of the Victoria Beckham designer, the woman who reinvented herself, the woman who would eventually be taken seriously in an industry that loves to laugh at celebrities. And that's why I love this documentary, because she because we get to see not just the posh spice icon, but the insecure girl behind her, the kid who didn't fit in, the young woman searching for identity, and the adult woman building a new one. Let's talk more about who is Victoria Beckham. So we know she's posh spice, she's a global fashion designer and makeup designer. She's a mother, she's a wife, she's a businesswoman, she's a certified London It Girl, and one of the original WAG, and not just any WAG, like the WAG. And for those of you that don't know UK culture in the early 2000s, let me explain a little bit about what a WAG is. Wags are known as wives and girlfriends of footballers, which are soccer players here in the United States, but everywhere else it's known as football. And the tabloids created the term to turn these women into caricatures. And Victoria, she was the wag of all wags. Her haircuts alone practically had their own PR teams. They photographed her all the time. In the documentary, they talk about how she's one of the most photographed women in the world at one point. And because she's known as Posh Spice, she always seemed very poised and she never smiled, and you know, they the media was just awful. And that's the next thing that I want to talk about is how brutal the media shaped her public identity because they painted her as cold and unfriendly, snobby, a difficult person, the person who never smiles. She's the posh one who thinks she's better than everyone, which she wasn't. You know, she was just insecure, um, which I think we all can relate to. I mean, I definitely can. If you're my age, you'll remember this area. We grew up watching the British tabloids basically declare declare war on this woman because she wore heels, she was married to Debbie Beckham, and she had her hair cut in a bob. Like, for real. That's that's what it was. They basically were painting her as these things versus what she was herself. But this documentary does a really great job of letting Victoria share with us who she really is. She's funny, she's dry, she's sarcastic. I mean, it opens with David Beckham telling her this corny joke, and you know, she's like, he tries to she he thinks she's so funny and blah blah blah. And it was really funny to see a little bit of banter. She's also aware of jokes being made about her and leans into it. If my coping mechanism was deadpan humor and sunglasses, it'd be like, yes, this is who I am now. Please contact my plubus list if you need a smile. It also shows us really early on she learned that giving the press anything, a joke, a slip-up, a candid emotion, they would weaponize it. So she built a persona. She became silent, she came she came she became sleek and serious. It was a character the media couldn't twist. And that was for about 10 years of her life. That was her story, and we really didn't know much about her. And then we move into her WAG era. So the Spice Girls have stopped touring and they've stopped doing things. She's become a mom of I think she's had two kids by now, and David Beckham is still playing, and so she's basically going with him and traveling with him wherever he's going. And that's really what she's doing. So, you know, she's just become known as this wag and not as she's no longer Posh Spice that brings anything to the table. She's just David Beckham's wife now. This episode hits deep, especially for women in their 30s and 40s, because the documentary shows how her marriage to David Beckham didn't elevate her in the public eye, it actually diminished her. So, like I said, you know, Posh Spice was kind of pushed aside because she was no longer touring and performing, she was just this the wife of a footballer, and so it made her less than somehow. She stopped being Victoria Adams, the pop star, and became Victoria Beckham, a footballer's wife. And the tabloids didn't just call her a wag. They treated her, they treated that label like it was her whole resume, her whole personality, her ambition and her worth, like she I don't know, like it was like they were trying to say that she couldn't possibly do anything better than just being David Beckham's wife. I mean, some of the things that they said in there were absolutely horrendous. Um, the clips that they would show. But that hit me, because how many times have we as women been flattened onto a one-dimensional role? Um, the soccer mom, uh coach's wife, the mom that's on filled seven with iced coffee, or the quiet one, we're the loud one, or the organized one, whatever box someone chooses for us, and that's kind of where we put ourselves. But Victoria spent years trying to escape the wag box, and watching her push through that is honestly inspiring. So then we get to another part where she's entering her fashion era, and let me tell you, the documentary makes it very clear that the industry did not take her seriously at first at all. And the whole documentary is taking place over several years, um, but the current time, because they, you know, flashback, but the current time she is actually getting ready for a huge fashion show that happened in September of 2024 in Paris, and they show the preparation for that and um all that goes into planning it and everything. She was releasing her new line, her spring-summer line. Again, they didn't take her seriously. They laughed at her, they dismissed her, they rolled her eyes at the idea that this pop star, this WAG could even make clothes. But she outworked everyone. She studied, um, she got mentors, and she built credibility stitch by stitch. She hired experts, she put in the hours and the kind of hours that only a woman trying to outrun a narrative can put in. And she succeeded. She created a label respected by editors, critics, and people who normally hate admitting celebrities have talent, and that alone was a miracle. Watching her midlife reinvention felt like watching someone say, actually, I'm not done. And that's the part that hit me the hardest because there's a myth that by the time you're 40, you should have already been everything you're going to be. But Victoria proves the opposite. Reinvention doesn't expire. A lot of things that I really loved about the the episode and throughout the whole documentary is getting to see her personality come out in it. Um, they show some interactions with her and her kids, um, which are fun, and they show her at the office and working with her coworkers and different things. They interview different, a lot of different fashion icons. You see Anna Wentor, who again didn't think that she was gonna amount to anything, and now they're you know colleagues basically. Um, Anna Wintour is the editor-in-chief of Vogue, um, and then Tom Ford, he's in there, and Donatella Versace's in there, and then her main mentor, um, who is Roland Moray, who is a fashion designer as well, and Victoria studied under him for many years in order to break out and build her own brand and own line. But here's what episode one taught me about being 40-ish and figuring it out. You're allowed to reinvent yourself at any age. You get to define your identity, not the labels that are placed on you. Public perception is often fiction, and silence can be power. Reinvention requires grit, not permission, and most importantly, you can be soft privately and still publicly. That's not fake, that's survival. And Victoria Beckham makes being complicated look chic, and I'm taking notes. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today for this breakdown of episode one of the Victoria Beckham documentary, and the episode one is titled Who Does She Think She Is? I'll see you next week for episode two, but trust me, we're just getting started. This episode of 40-ish and figuring it out was written, produced, edited, and sound mixed by me, Katie Collicker. Music is created using the Suno app under their paid plan, which provides licensing for creators to use Suno tracks in podcast productions. If you enjoyed today's episode, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow 40-ish friend who is also out here reinventing herself. And remember, being posh isn't a personality, it's a lifestyle. I'll see you next time.