Victoria Beckham to expand fashion line to Asia

Watched by her adoring family, Victoria Beckham brought a sexy vision of fall/winter to an intimate New York runway Show Sunday and confided that she plans to open a second store in Asia.

The one-time pop star, mother of four and wife of retired English football superstar David Beckham, has won plaudits in the fashion industry for designing beautiful collections that flatter women's bodies.

David sat front row holding three-year-old daughter Harper on his lap, and chatted to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour after arriving with sons Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz all dressed in sharp black outfits.

Harper, dressed in a black frock with white cuffs and peter-pan collar, tried to capture the catwalk show with her own camera, perhaps inspired by the phalanx of photographers and delighting her doting father and Wintour.

Brooklyn, 15, chewing gum and dressed in black leather trousers looked effortlessly cool as he and his brother Romeo, who had modeled for Burberry, appeared to film the show discreetly from their cell phones.

Beckham summed up her collection backstage as sexy, liberating and full of bounce, after showcasing dresses with full skirts, textured knits with high necks, oversized coats with swinging bodies.

She said that 2015 would see her spend a lot of time in Asia, where "as things currently stand" she plans to open a second store after the success of her Dover Street boutique in London.

She told AFP bashfully that she "can't say" where the shop would be, but that she was planning a trip to Hong Kong and Beijing within weeks.

"I'm coming very, very, very soon," she told reporters. "I'm really looking forward to it. The women really understand fashion."

A more intimate catwalk show than many at Fashion Week, Beckham treated guests to steaming glasses of Earl Grey tea, handed as they came in from minus 9 Celsius (16 Fahrenheit) temperatures outside.

Held in the imposing surrounds of Cipriani restaurant on Broadway, the 65-foot (20 meter) high ceilings of the 1921 building, soaring marble columns, inlaid floors and murals handed a neo-Renaissance elegance to proceedings.

Ankle platform boots

Beckham broke fashion rules by pairing navy and black, and there were splashes of orange but otherwise she stuck to her timeless classic palate of white, gray, cream, black.

Woolen coats and dresses with embellished with large buttons down the front, at the hip, on the back. Long, tight skirts were paired with chunky knits with sleeves puffed at the elbow and dresses were sleeveless.

The models wore black ankle boots with towering platform heels.

She made a fleeting appearance at the end of the show, her trademark pout accompanied by a bashful wave, but was chatty, charming and polite to her family and reporters backstage.

"I love having them here. They're so supportive of what I do. We all support each other," she said.

"I stand on a football pitch, freezing cold, for hours on end watching the boys and I've always supported David doing the same thing."

On Saturday, ready-to-wear brand Altuzarra took inspiration from the female friends of American novelist Truman Capote, who were known as "the swans" and 18th century dandies for a feminine, flirty runway show.

"I am slightly trying to challenge the notion of the silhouette and to take it somewhere else that's why you see skirts that were longer, which have movement and you see things higher on the neck," designer Joseph Altuzarra told AFP.

There were lean fluted skirts, soft high-necked blouses, coats with small shoulders and exaggerated fur collars, and jackets nipped in at the waist with ruffled hems.

Altuzarra unveiled its first handbag collection with braided tasseled straps and bold hardware inspired by heirloom lighters.

Jenna Lyons, the creative director for womenswear at high-street American label JCrew, told AFP backstage that she was a "huge fan."

"What I love about Joseph is that there is a sexiness, but it never feels over the top," she said. "Can't wait to go and place an order!"