By Michael Moran
Copyright walesonline
A fashion writer has told how she attended the launch of a new Marc Jacobs collection featuring a now-iconic image of Victoria Beckham – only to be given strict, and very strange, instructions by the celebrity’s PR. Liz Jones, who claims to have been barred from attending shows by the likes of Armani, Louis Vuitton, Chloe, Chanel, and Marc Jacobs, writes in the Daily Mail that a “flunkey” took her aside almost as soon as she entered the venue. Jones says she was only allowed in under strict conditions: “I was told that on no account could I approach Victoria, and that I also ‘must not look at her’. “What, not catch her eye?” Jones asked, only to be told: “Do not even glance in her direction.” The bizarre exchange has resurfaced after the launch a new three-part Netflix documentary, tracing Victoria’s rise from wannabe pop star in the mid-1990s to superstar, original WAG and, now “global fashion icon.” Jones has had a rocky history with the Victoria Beckham brand, notably when she snagged Victoria as the cover star for an edition of Marie Claire – the magazine she was editing at the time. While the photos intended for the cover turned out well, a few candid snaps of Victoria with her new baby – Brooklyn Beckham – caused friction. Jones recalls: “She hated the headline I proposed for the interview, When Posh Came to Shove, and told me that if I published the photo of her cradling Brooklyn, she would sue.” Desperate to make peace with the fearsome “tiger mother,” Jones sent the best of the black and white shots of Victoria cradling baby Brooklyn over to the Beckham home, along with a note promising that the negatives of those photos had been destroyed so they would never see the light of day. “I never received a thank-you,” Jones complains. “In fact, Victoria expressed her gratitude by failing to show up at the party held to celebrate her cover while also raising money for breast cancer research.” Jones had managed to alienate many of the fashion in-crowd by lifting the lid on the gravy-train of free gifts that is the luxury industry’s lifeblood. She claimed at the time that the freebies she was offered “included a week on a yacht in Capri from Todd’s, the handbag people”. She said the culture of free gifts amounted to bribery: “If a Westminster reporter took money from the Government or a football reporter took money from a club, it would be a scandal.” According to Jones, the world of fashion is “an endless merry-go-round of air kissing and bony-a*** licking.” She claims that the only reason top designer Tom Ford is so flattering about Victoria’s designs in the new Netflix series is because the former Spice Girl has “promised to wear head-to-toe Tom on the cover of October’s US Elle.” Victoria’s stony silence on the columnists’s criticism is nothing compared to This Morning co-presenter Phillip Schofield, who responded to some unkind remarks about Holly Willoughby by saying: “I swear there can be no greater force against all womankind than Liz Jones. She is inconsistent, bitter, nasty and unhinged.” WalesOnline contacted representatives of Victoria Beckham, but they declined to comment. Victoria Beckham drops on Netflix tomorrow (Thursday, October 9).