Get ready for Beckham and her next fashion look

[September 13, 2010]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Picture this: Victoria Beckham in a white matte gazar gown with sculptural pleated shoulders and a waistband adorned with linked microbeads.

The dress was part of the spring collection Beckham offered Sunday morning as part of New York Fashion Week at an elegant mansion off Fifth Avenue to a small, select group of editors, retailers and stylists.

"I pushed myself with this dress," she said, vowing to wear it to the next big fashion event.

The Cadillac-pink shift dress with an asymmetrical, curved neckline is also headed to her personal wardrobe as a daytime traveling dress, and the masculine leather weekender that's part of her new handbag collection can be for husband, David Beckham.

"I had to do something David would use," she said with a smile. Of course, there's a Victoria bag, too -- a polished, squarish shape.

The gloss jacquard fabric she used for some shorter dresses was stiff and industrial, but the shades of opal, purple and gray kept those pieces from crossing the line to techno. And a white flare dress had a subtle gray print and delicate sheer stripes on the skirt, offering her own spin on what seems to be a must-have trend.

She said she took "a meter and a half" of bright purple parachute silk and draped it around herself, experimenting until she got the knot-waist dress that opened her runway just right.

Beckham takes the unusual step of personally narrating her show, and with each explanation of a boned bodice or bias cut, her credibility shoots up. She is now treated by the industry as a celebrated designer, not a celebrity.

The themes of her spring dresses -- and the collection was only dresses -- was a celebration of curves, she said, taking out some of the corsetry that she previously built silhouettes on, replacing that with oval panels on the bodice that she said would give the same flattering shape with more comfort.

Of course, Beckham herself is known as a petite creature with a dramatic look, but she also appeared softer wearing her hair long and a cinched bell-shape dress topped by a shrunken cardigan, both black. She kept her killer heels, though, a pair of sky-high, copper-colored Brian Atwoods.

[Associated Press; By SAMANTHA CRITCHELL]

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