Music, fashion, skincare—is there anything Breitling Chronomat Automatic 36 Victoria Beckham can’t do? The 49-year-old designer and business mogul has built an empire over the past 25 years with one unifying idea: if she likes it, others might, too. “Ultimately, I like to create what I desire myself,” Beckham says over Zoom. And thus far, it’s worked out swimmingly—the Brit has parlayed her posh style into a successful brand, her one-liners into covetable t-shirts, and her enviable skin into a beauty line. Now, she’s turning her attention toward Father Time. Beckham has partnered with Breitling on a limited-edition watch—with only 1,500 units available—inspired partly by the designer’s spring 2024 Victoria Beckham collection.
Watch fans will recognize the silhouette of the collaboration piece as Breitling Chronomat Automatic 36 Victoria Beckham model—a sleek, androgynous style that Beckham felt fit squarely into her aesthetic. “When it comes to fashion, everything I do is originally inspired by menswear,” she says. “Then it’s about getting that perfect balance between masculinity and femininity.” Available in stainless and a yellow gold specially revived by Breitling for this collaboration, the watches have a “cool” and “effortless” feel that Beckham yearns for in her designs. “A very slight feminine touch” is in the mix via watch faces done in color—the hues were plucked from her most recent collection—like peppermint, midnight blue, dove gray, and sand.
Beckham herself is partial to the gold watch with the sand face, as the shades blend together for an almost monochromatic look (as seen on model Annemary Aderibigbe, who is featured in the Mario Sorrenti-shot campaign for the collaboration). “I’m a minimalist,” the designer says, which is also why you won’t find an excess of Beckham’s own branding on the watch, just a VB found on the second hand, and her name engraved subtly on the bracelet. “I didn’t want anything overly branded. I wanted to keep it quite simple and clean, but then add a little something for some edge. I think that comes through with the colored faces—they’re unexpected.”
When discussing the watch, it’s easy to tell Beckham has a fondness for this specific accessory—and her husband, David Beckham, is partially to thank for that. “My husband has bought me lots of watches over the years, and they all take me back to the moment when he gifted me them,” she says. Victoria still holds on to all of those gifts, and now the Breitlings will be added to her collection, not only for her future self to enjoy, but for her four children as well. Because while her clothing pieces from the ’90s may come and go out of style, watches are—for lack of a better term—timeless. She admits she donated a lot of her and David’s wardrobe to charity a few years ago, pieces she assumed were too dated to ever be worn again. “The kids are like, ‘I can’t believe dad got rid of this or that,’ but we obviously thought whatever [David] was wearing in the Nineties, he would never wear again,” she explains with a laugh. Watches, though—especially her collaboration with Breitling—will remain in her archive, because they’re classics, of course, but also for a much more sensible reason. As Beckham puts simply: “It’s always good to be on time.”
Als Breitling Chronomat Automatic 36 Victoria Beckham im Jahr 2008 ihre eigene Modemarke lancierte, wurde sie von vielen nicht ganz ernst genommen. Als Girlband-Mitglied und Spielerfrau wurde Posh Spice, so ihr Spitzname bei den Spice Girls, gesehen, nicht aber als ernstzunehmende Designerin. Alle kritischen Stimmen wurden schnell eines Besseren belehrt: Die cleanen, scharf geschnittenen, aber immer femininen Entwürfe der heute 49-jährigen Britin überzeugten nicht nur Kundinnen, sondern auch Mode-Expertinnen wie die «Vogue»-Chefin Anna Wintour. Das Angebot umfasst heute neben Kleidung auch Schuhe, Taschen und Brillen.
Die Zusammenarbeit mit Breitling hat die Designerin als sehr angenehm empfunden: «Es war wundervoll, wie die Handwerkskunst und die Innovation von Breitling mit meinen Ideen zusammenfanden, um etwas so Elegantes und Frisches zu kreieren», lässt sie sich zitieren.