'I'm 38 by the way,' Victoria Beckham offers, about 10 minutes into our conversation. 'I think I'm the only person in Hollywood who's actually quite honest about how old she is. Everybody else, they get younger and I get older. What's that about?' she laughs. 'I don't have any problem with getting older, I'm much more comfortable in myself and confident. I'm a better person.'
Beckham is well prepared for the media at the Four Seasons Hotel but it's through asides such as these that you start to see why she has a reputation for being a bit of a laugh. On a recent flight to Beijing, she tweeted a picture of herself with a Cathay Pacific stewardess to her three million Twitter followers, spawning a viral sensation.
Perfectly groomed, from the immaculate freshly blow-dried hair to the sweeping arches of her eyebrows and the glossy lipstick that stays put, Beckham hardly looks the part of a comedienne. She does, however, look like one half of a power couple who made it onto The Sunday Times 2012 rich list - her and David ranking joint 10th in the 'music millionaires' list of people residing in Britain, with reported earnings totalling GBP20 million (HK$252 million) in the past 12 months.
Since the inception of her eponymous fashion label four years ago, Beckham, already a style icon, has reinvented herself as a fashion insider, making great efforts to move on from the Posh Spice and WAG personas of yesteryear. However, her fashion career has not been without its doubters, especially given the industry's wariness of celebrity designers (the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton have hardly helped the cause).
'I was very aware of people's preconceptions,' says Beckham. 'For me it's been a lifetime in the making. It's a passion, it's what I've always dreamt of doing. I love women; I want to empower a woman, that's why I do what I do.
I was just very, very focused. I knew what I wanted, had a very small team of people, and I want to give my customer what she wants.'
As far as anyone can gauge from a few short minutes with Beckham, she is wholeheartedly invested in the venture and, despite having had no formal design training, her language is peppered with design-speak. She is clearly passionate and a bit of a control freak about the whole thing. Dare I mention 'girl power'?