Football and Fashion |

If there has ever been doubt about the title of “fashion designer” as applied to super-mum Victoria Beckham, no one is likely to harbour it any longer.  She presented a preview of her new fall collection on Valentine’s Day during the New York Fashion Week.  This is her fourth dress collection and it certainly appears that she is very much in the forefront and on target with her trademark designs.

The VB look is sleek, elegant and timeless, though Victoria told interviewers that a lot of the influence in her latest collection came from her study of 1940’s comic strips.  Her ultra-stylish trench coat design was inspired by the Dick Tracy character, and other designs call up the understated sexiness of early Hollywood “femme’ fatale”.

Beckham said she is working with texture, draping and structure to attain ever-higher goals of elegance and fluidity in the garments she designs.  Her attention to detail is another trademark of the VB line, perfectly highlighted in her column gown with built-in corset. She hosted the small salon showing in one of her best creations, a wool tunic-dress for all occasions, completed with platform pumps designed for her by Brian Atwood.

Victoria Beckham’s top quality line keeps on selling out, even in these ‘challenging’ financial times; sales will probably run close to £4.7million in the coming year.  If, as she laughingly mentioned to reporters, her son Romeo intends to take over the business some day, he will undoubtedly have a going and growing concern to work with.

Even though Vanessa Perroncel humiliated Wayne Bridge when she had an affair with his teammate John Terry, and potentially breaking up his marriage, Perroncel still declared that she loves Bridge and would love to get back together with him for the sake of their son who is three years old.

Perroncel is said to have told friends that she realizes Bridge is hurting terribly but that she still loves him and she would love to have him back for her and son Jaydon.  She went on to say that she realizes it must have been a terrible week for him as she has been forced to read stories about her sex life that she regards mostly as lies.

Friends of Perroncel stated that she was devastated when the public discovered her affair with Terry.  Since the news came out she has only seen Bridge once briefly when he came to pick up her son.

Perroncel’s close friend Antonia Graham stated that she never stopped loved Bridge but is unsure if he still feels the same way about her.  Her friend also stated that their split during the summer was due to a large number of small things, and that she still wants to spend her life with him despite breaking off the engagement.

Terry also suffered from the fallout with his wife taking a period away from him in Dubai to consider if she will leave him or not, and the loss of his job as England’s captain last Friday.

John Terry’s wife left Britain for Dubai after declaring to Terry that their marriage was over.

Toni Terry, his wife, was reportedly destroyed after finding out that the star Chelsea footballer was cheating on her with his team-mate Wayne Bridge’s girlfriend.

After telling Terry that she wanted a divorce she took her twins to Dubai.

Friends reported that Toni was torn apart by the news that Terry had cheated twice a week for four months on her with Vanessa Perroncel. This is in the face of Terry’s Dad of the Year award in 2009.

According to her friends, the last straw came when she learned that Terry had arranged for Perroncel to have an abortion after Terry found out she had become pregnant.

Toni left Saturday night for the Gulf accompanied by her three year old twins and her mother.  At the moment she is looking at retaining the services of Fiona Shackleton, a top divorce lawyer, to ensure she gets at least half of Terry’s fortune.

Terry is thought to earn about £8m per year.  He also enjoys several sponsorship deals with Umbro, Nationwide, and Samsung as well as owning two lavish properties and a handful of luxury cars.

However, legal experts say that if Toni files for divorce his lifestyle may end given that he could owe over £10m to her. A source close to Toni stated that she has had more than she can take and is fairly certain that she wants a divorce at this point.

Victoria Beckham is reportedly thinking about taking a £25m offer if she helps to design a new luxury hotel.

More jaw shocking however than the fee, may be the fact that Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, wrote to her himself to ask if she would help after meeting her and her husband during a holiday in the Gulf area.

The hotel in need of aid would be located on the Isla Moda which is a small isle off the coast of Dubai that will be fashion themed with the aid of designer Karl Lagerfeld.

However, as astounding as the entire offer may seem, Beckham is thinking about if she should take on the project or not, because as a mom of three she is not sure if she has enough spare time to focus on the project.

According to a source close to Beckham, she was astounded by how much the Dubai ruler offered her after she met the Shiek last summer.  However, the two have been communicating for months about the project and she has not yet decided if she has the time because accepting would mean getting hands-on with the designs and decision making.

For the moment, according to a spokeswoman for Beckham, her focus is on New York fashion week, but she is of course always on the lookout for more opportunities to grow her business.

The Isla Moda is a manmade island that is part of the Dubai archipelago which is referred to as The World due to the fact that the 300 islands were made to look like a globe from an aerial view.

Melanie Slade has been known to shy away from the publicity that comes with being a WAG, which is why it should be no surprise that she rejected a flashy birthday present from her Arsenal boyfriend Theo Walcott.

Slade who will be 21 this January turned away a £140,000 Ferrari California from Walcott that came complete with personalized nameplates.  She told him that she was still satisfied and happy to drive the £20,000 VW Beetle that he gave her when she turned 18.

Her decision was based around the fact that she is studying at London’s St. George’s Hospital and thought that the Ferrari would be too much to be seen driving around campus in.

She also told her friends that at times she wishes Walcott was less “showy” about how much money he makes, a whopping £60,000 per week.

One of her friends stated that Slade considered the car and gave it a test drive but is now back to driving her Beetle because she considers the Ferrari a waste of money.  The friend went on to state that Slade is trying hard not to get pinned as living the WAG lifestyle on campus.

Walcott and Slade met in 2006 at the WestQuay shopping centre in Southampton, and have been dating ever since, although she did not become part of the media focus until she travelled to see him play in the World Cup.

Although Slade has had promotional offers, she is determined to finish her coursework and pursue a career as a physiotherapist.

Alex Curran who is the wife of Steven Gerrard revealed the other day that while everyone thinks that all the WAGs hang out, she is not close to any of them.

Curran continued to say it is not as if she calls up Coleen Rooney or that she even really enjoys football as much as people may think.  She confessed to reporters that she may watch the bigger games with her husband but that she is not a big time fan.

However, she said that she will be watching in South Africa next summer when her husband will be taking the pitch in the World Cup in an attempt to lead England to victory.  Curran stated that she cannot wait to see Steven play and that she thinks the team has a good chance although she does want to jinx it.

Even in South Africa Curren will be working out however, as the face of Shake Weight arm slimmers, because according to her once you get bingo arms they are incredibly hard to get rid of.

She has an ulterior reason up her sleeve however, as she said that even though she may not be best pals with her fellow WAGs she still wants to keep up with them visually stating that Beckham always looks amazing with a famous sense for style and that Cheryl Cole is lovely.

She added that she understands why some women such as Beckham and Cole dislike the term WAG because it is discouraging after their hard work that this is what they are known for.

Tweets about the ex Spice Girl Victoria Beckham fuelled a new rumour that the girl once known as Posh may soon be launching a new fur fashion line with Marc Jacobs.

During a visit to Paris last week Jacobs and Beckham met up to talk about the new line according to LVMH exec Edo Jao, who wrote that the two were talking about a new line while hanging out.

Jokingly, Jao added in that he would have to prepare the PETA pre-emptive strike now.

This is not such a joke as Beckham has had several brushes with PETA over animal pelts, the first beginning back in 2005 when she was accused of wearing fur.

At the time Beckham declared this was a lie, and that she is very supportive of anti-fur movements, and that she would never include fur in her fashion lines.

However, at the beginning of the year website bloggers did a little research on the supposedly faux fox pelt that was on Beckham and decided that it was in fact made of genuine fur.

To make matters worse, just last month she was out on the town with the newest handbag from Louis Vuitton, which usually comes with a fox tail as an accessory.

Her aide however stated that this was also a onetime faux gift produced for Beckham.

This leads the rumour to mean one of two things: Either the rumour is completely made up or meant to be about a faux fur line, or Beckham is secretly a fur addict.