当世界用四年定义你，她花了二十年重新定义自己

Source: Netflix

去年，Netflix 推出的那部有关David Beckham的 纪录片，让我这个平时几乎不看体育纪录片的人破例守在电视机前，连续看了好几个小时，从头到尾一集不落。

这周，Victoria Beckham的纪录片也在Netflix上映，并且马上登上了Netflix Top 10。虽然很多夫妻明星很多，但是能够像David与Victoria这样不管经历了多少风风雨雨，造就出今天Beckham品牌的明星夫妻真的还是凤毛麟角。

在流行文化的长河里，这两人二十多年来一直是全球舆论的持续话题。Victoria的这部纪录片让我重新回到了90年代，她从“辣妹合唱团”里的Posh Spice出发，然后嫁给全球最受瞩目的英俊足球巨星，又在时尚领域重新定义了自己的身份。我觉得Victoria的一生像是一本展开在聚光灯下的公开传记，而且每一次转型都伴随着质疑、误解与反击。

昨天休息在家，我花了三个小时看玩了Victoria的这部纪录片。自从Victoria成名以来，英国的大小报不知道花了多少时间去传播各种她的真的或者假的信息，而这部剧集让她终于有机会讲述属于自己的故事。

纪录片里的Victoria在接受《泰晤士报》采访时说了这样一段话：“我所有的人生经历都被定义在那短短的四年里，那是‘辣妹合唱团’的时期。然后我花了将近二十年，才从那个标签中挣脱出来。”

我想她这么说显然并不是像某些傲慢的明星那样，想否定或掩盖自己早年的经历。Victoria一直坦然地承认没有辣妹，就没有今天的她。我认为她在《泰晤士报》的采访所分享的，其实点出了一个我们都熟悉的社会现象：为什么别人总喜欢用我们生命中那段短短的几年，去定义我们的一生？

这段话也让我想起自己在战略咨询行业中转行和生存的经历。我没有MBA学位，没有在那些全球知名的大型咨询公司工作过，英语也不是我的第一语言，而且我进入公司的第一份工作是做运营管理。于是当我后来开始尝试转型，参与客户咨询时，公司的其他合伙人始终不会把大型的项目交给我，我想也许是因为我看起来不像他们印象中那个“标准的战略顾问”吧。甚至在我成为合伙人好多年之后，我们公司创始人的太太仍然叫我“Office Manager”。

我想，这种情况和Victoria有点相似。无论原因是什么，我们人生中那短短的几年，常常就被别人当作定义我们一生的标签了。

而更有趣的是，当我们被别人定义的时候，我们自己也常常在“定义”别人。就拿Victoria来说，我自己其实也曾是那种“定义她的人”。我嘲笑过她永远不笑的表情，八卦过她和大卫的婚姻，在柠檬水的播客里，也质疑过她是不是一个合格的商人？她的品牌为什么老是不赚钱？

Victoria的时尚品牌成立于2008年，起步就选择了最艰难的奢侈品路线。她没有像Jennifer Lopez那样做大众时装，也没有像Rihanna那样得到LVMH的扶持，她几乎完全是靠自己的名字与积蓄，一步步建立起品牌的形象与体系。品牌前期时候的亏损成了媒体的把柄，英国小报乐此不疲地报道她“烧掉了贝克汉姆的财富”，嘲笑她“不懂时尚”，预言她“很快会倒闭”。

而Victoria就在那些质疑声中，不争不辩，安静地做自己的事，一点一点地把自己做得更好，从“名人”到现在成为受时尚行业十分尊重的设计师。

在2022年，维多利亚终于实现了盈利。十五年的努力，换来一句轻描淡写的“终于赚钱了”。

就算品牌后来真的赚钱了，很多人还是喜欢把Victoria的成功，讲成是“丈夫支持妻子实现奢侈梦想”的故事。现在“贝克汉姆”这个名字几乎成了一个整体——他们的财富、形象、甚至人生轨迹都同步前进。但有趣的是，当David投资足球俱乐部时，大家都说那是聪明的商业布局；可当Victoria把心血放进时尚品牌时，却被质疑是在“挥霍”。

我想，如果Victoria是个男设计师，这段故事是不是就会被写成“远见与毅力”的成功典范呢？

这也许正是最隐蔽的一种性别偏见吧。男人投资是远见，女人投资是任性。我们的社会总是更容易理解男人的野心，却常常用不同的眼光看待女人的抱负。而这种态度，也许也是人类社会里根深蒂固的父权逻辑：当一个女人的创造力和坚持真的开花结果时，那种被挑战的不安就会悄悄浮现出来。

Victoria的坚持没有让那种不安得逞，她让自己的事业盈利，也让人们重新定义“贝克汉姆”这个姓氏：不仅是足球的代名词，更是一个关于努力与自信的家族品牌。

现在的Victoria早已不再只是当年那个在舞台上挺直背、抿着嘴的“Posh Spice”了。她是一个母亲、企业家、设计师，一个在聚光灯下成长的女性。她的故事提醒了我们：被误解不是失败，被标签也不是终点。关键在于，你是否有足够的耐心与信念，把那些偏见熬成证明。

在这个什么都要快速看到成效的年代里，或许我们每个人都需要一点Victoria式的坚韧与长期主义，在被误解中继续努力，在被定义中不断超越。

Breaking the Label: What Victoria Beckham Taught Me About Redefining Success

Last year, Netflix released a documentary about David Beckham, and for someone like me who is not a soccer fan at all, I actually sat in front of the TV for hours, watching it from beginning to end without skipping a single episode.

This week, Netflix released Victoria Beckham, and it immediately climbed into the platform’s Top 10. In this world, there are plenty of celebrity couples, but very few have built a shared brand as enduring as David and Victoria Beckham, weathering two decades of storms together to create what we now know as the “Beckham” brand.

Victoria’s documentary took me back to the 1990s, when she started as “Posh Spice” in the Spice Girls, married one of the world’s most famous football stars, and later reinvented herself as a fashion designer. Her life feels like a public biography written under the spotlight, every chapter marked by skepticism, misunderstanding, and comeback.

Yesterday, I spent three hours at home watching Victoria’s documentary. Since her rise to fame, British tabloids have spent countless hours spreading all sorts of true and false stories about her. This documentary finally gave her a chance to tell her own story.

In one of the scenes, Victoria Beckham says in her interview with The Times: “My entire life has been defined by that short four-year period, the Spice Girls years. It took me almost two decades to break free from that label.”

What struck me was that she wasn’t saying this with the arrogance of a celebrity trying to deny or erase her past. On the contrary, Victoria has always acknowledged that without the Spice Girls, she wouldn’t be where she is today. What she shared in that interview actually touches on something deeply familiar to many of us — a social pattern we all recognize: why do people so often define our entire lives by just a few years of our past?

That question made me think of my own journey, my transition and survival in the strategy consulting industry. I didn’t have an MBA. I hadn’t worked for one of those world-famous consulting firms. English isn’t my first language. And when I first joined my company, I worked in back-office operations.

Later, when I began transitioning into client-facing consulting work, those labels still followed me. Perhaps I simply didn’t fit the idea of what a “traditional strategy consultant” should look like. Even years after I became a partner, our company founder’s wife still referred to me as the office manager.

In that sense, I can relate to Victoria. For one reason or another, those few early years of my career became the label that some people used to define me, just as others did to her.

What’s even more interesting is that while we often complain about being defined by others, we’re equally guilty of defining others ourselves.

Take Victoria, for example. I’ve done it too. I used to mock her for never smiling, gossip about her marriage to David, even question on my podcast whether she was truly a capable entrepreneur — why wasn’t her brand making money?

Victoria founded her fashion label in 2008, choosing the most difficult path: luxury. She didn’t go the mass-market route like Jennifer Lopez, nor did she have the backing of a powerhouse like LVMH, as Rihanna did. She built her brand almost entirely on her own name, reputation, and family savings.

In the early years, the losses gave the tabloids endless ammunition. British media delighted in reporting that she was “burning through Beckham’s fortune,” mocking her as someone who “didn’t understand fashion,” and predicting her brand’s inevitable collapse.

But Victoria stayed silent through it all. She didn’t argue or explain; she just kept working quietly, steadily improving. Over time, she transformed herself from a celebrity designer into a true fashion figure genuinely respected by the industry.

In 2022, after fifteen years of effort, her brand finally turned a profit, a hard-earned triumph she seems to reduce to a simple phrase: “Finally profitable.”

And yet, even then, many people still framed her success as “a husband supporting his wife’s luxury dream.”

Today, the name Beckham has become almost inseparable, their wealth, image, and even life trajectories move in sync. But here’s the irony: when David invests in a football club, people call it a smart business move. When Victoria pours her passion into fashion, they call it extravagant.

I can’t help but wonder, if Victoria were a man, wouldn’t her story be described as one of “vision and perseverance”?

Perhaps this is one of the most subtle forms of gender bias: when a man invests, it’s called foresight; when a woman invests, it’s called indulgence. Our society is far more comfortable admiring men’s ambition than accepting women’s ambition as equally valid. This double standard, I believe, comes from a deep-rooted patriarchy that feels uneasy when women succeed.

But Victoria’s determination left no room for that unease. She built a profitable business and redefined what “Beckham” stands for — not just football, but a family brand built on hard work, resilience, and confidence.

Today, Victoria is no longer the young woman on stage with a stiff smile and perfect posture. She’s a mother, an entrepreneur, a designer, a woman who has grown up under the spotlight. Her story reminds us that being misunderstood is not failure, and being labeled is not the end. What matters is whether we have the patience and conviction to turn prejudice into proof.

In a world obsessed with quick wins and instant results, we could all use a bit of Victoria’s resilience and long-term vision — the strength to keep going through misunderstanding and to rise above the labels others place on us.