So, you think you know Victoria Beckham. Yeah, we all did too. This season at Paris Fashion Week, the namesake brand stuns attendees as it explores the fantasy and frisson of getting all dressed up. However, this isn’t your typical game of dress-up. Through the backroads of the mind, Beckham and her team explore the subconscious construction of character through the vessel of fashion. Delightfully unexpected, it’s about to get a whole lot weird. 

Victoria Beckham presented a collection that screamed glamour to the last stitch in its Paris Fashion Week debut last season. Ruched ankle-length dresses in moss and blush were showcased, paired with opera-length gloves in black leather and frosty pink lace variations. Avocado-hued, collarless coats shimmered with soigné to spare. 

Tassels of what appeared hair adorned bags as they sagged over the arms of models strutting down the corridors of the Val-de-Grâce. In green and blonde-haired variations, their silken strands swayed and bounced gracefully. 

Yes, it was odd, a little off-beat, and, ultimately, up to speed with all the bizarre mischievous designs showcased at Paris Fashion Week. Let’s just say Victoria was right at home. 

But how did a newcomer presenter at Paris Fashion Week know what beat to march to? Beckham knows all of this because she has spent more than a decade deeply submerged in fashion’s sphere. While her initial presentation officially baptized her as part of Paris’ fashion scene, she’s no rookie at the game—she was once Posh Spice, after all. 

This season, we again meet with the eponymous brand in the Val-de-Grâce. Under a baroque-style, domed hallway, its dark corridors instantly illuminate with the first look sent down the runway. And so, Beckham kicks off her sophomore Parisian show with a bang. 

Doubling up on plumes, silk, and pleats, the collection’s first look arrives in a playful hodgepodge of a floor-length gown. Representing the conflicts in identity when getting ready, gowns in patchworks of contrasting colors then followed. Loose ruffles were exchanged for tighter pleats. Plumes accentuating the waist, neck, and chest summon the eccentric—the diva and the dreamer. 

Across the waist, light meets darkness in color-blocked creations. Adorned with dark feathers on one side and pleated throughout the back, dresses are merely a starting point for the whimsical spectacle Beckham has in store. The collection’s circular ribbed gowns refused to let their wearer’s form define them. They are the defining piece, so it should only be suitable that they define themselves with imposing circular additions—all structured in crinoline.

Suffused with nostalgia for the glamour of the early twentieth century, Beckham’s collection beaconed with timeless elegance as buttery bias-cut gowns emerged in Eggshell and creamy, light Peach. Reviving the Femme Fatale of the 40s, the house featured these charming gowns with nebulous puffing and sensuous draping. Framed with sailor and plunging collars and, at times, long silken capes, these creations imbued an aura of mystery and whimsicality on the runway. 

Why should fringe be limited to wool, silk, linen, or narrow strips of leather? Fringe is brought back from last season—once again via hair. That’s right. Hair. Note the crochet and knitwear bibs. Woven with hair extensions, bibs are arguably one of Beckham’s most exclamative accessories of the season. Honorable mentions include faux hair slithering from necklines and pumps crafted from luscious locks. Brazilian artist Solange Pessoa took center stage as inspiration for these hirsute creations. Collecting human hair for decades to create her installations, Pessoa honors organic materials to excavate past layers of the human psyche. 

Could Beckham have been alluding to mortality? Perhaps, she took a jab at surrealist sartorialism to weave elements of the bizarre subconscious into the garments in her latest collection. All we can do is assume; however, it was certainly memorable.