POSH UNDER THE LIGHTS: Leave it to Marc Jacobs to convince a Spice Girl to go unplugged. For his hotly anticipated signature campaign for spring, Victoria Beckham put herself in front of the often harsh and unforgiving lens of Jacobs' regular lensman, Juergen Teller.
"She was a great sport. She agreed to do something rough and tough and quite raw," Jacobs said Thursday. "It wasn't days and days of hair and makeup." Confirming details about their collaboration, first reported in WWD on Oct. 17, Jacobs said the campaign depicts Beckham amid giant Marc Jacobs gift boxes and shopping bags, a sly allusion to how celebrities today are packaged and marketed like products.
In fact, Jacobs' favorite images depict Beckham popping out of a box — or her head buried in a bag, with only her legs sticking out. The designer is also quite fond of one in which she is posed next to a car, a VB logo visible on the hubcaps.
A recent front-row regular at Jacobs' shows for both his own label and Louis Vuitton, Beckham, married to soccer star David, is out to build her own lifestyle brand, dVb, with products such as sunglasses, denim and fragrance. To be sure, Jacobs is "fascinated with the cultural phenomenon of the Beckhams" and today's tabloid culture. Indeed, when he approached Beckham, he wanted to make sure she went into the project with eyes wide open. "I said, 'People are going to think this is pretty odd,'" Jacobs said, also explaining how his controversial spring collection, which included a suite of numbered dresses designed with football players' wives in mind, played with "ideas about sexuality and what that means today."
Jacobs even brought up the e-word, exploitation, to Beckham, since some accused the designer of that when he used convicted shoplifter Winona Ryder for a campaign in 2002 (he also dressed Ryder during her trial). But he was wasting his breath.
"She was like, 'I totally get it and I'm totally into it," Jacobs said. "She has an amazing sense of humor about herself....She just gave herself over to it."
Jacobs could not provide images of the campaign at press time.
Meanwhile, Jacobs cast "Gummo" director Harmony Korine for his signature men's wear campaign.