Victoria Beckham Turned Up the Heat in Miami with a Dinner Party to Fete her Pop-up Boutique

Miami has long been home-away-from home for the quintessentially English Beckhams—who trade their Cotswolds chickens for the Magic City sunshine any chance they can get. So when Victoria Beckham set her eyes on her inaugural Stateside retail presence, a pop-up at Bal Harbour Shops seemed like the perfect opportunity to marry business and pleasure.

“I mean, what’s not to love about Miami? I’d say it’s my happy place,” Beckham agreed. “The people, the energy, the way of life, and waking up to incredible weather every day.” Wednesday evening also marked the brand’s first-ever Miami-hosted event, with no shortage of friends showing up en masse to raise a chilled glass of Champagne à la piscine to toast to the ephemeral store. Key players from her design and beauty teams had all flown in for the occasion, too.

“Quite often, myself and David go to Bal Habour in the evening to have a drink and go for dinner—it is the most luxurious way to shop and relax, and there’s this real sense of welcoming, which I love,” Beckham said. “To have all my teams with me and be able to host a dinner here…it feels almost weird. This is not what my life normally looks like in Miami; it’s usually much more laidback, casual, and just hanging out with the family.”

Casual tendencies were indeed cast aside for the night, with guests including Ronaldo, Karolina Kurkova, Antonela Roccuzzo, Marc Anthony, and David Grutman arriving to crisp mini martinis and sake cocktails, before tucking into a seated dinner of modern Japanese fare by Makoto.

And even with the heavy humidity and a high dew point, fashion came first. “I’ll tell you one thing, we’re going to be embracing some very different hairstyles this evening. We’re going to be seeing each other like we’ve never seen each other before,” Beckham laughed, referring to her fellow Londonders attempting to cope with the heat. (During dinner, paper fans abounded.) Donning a “light and breathable” sleeveless cowl-neck silk number in a mink hue, she added: “I never like it to look like I’ve tried too hard. I want to be comfortable, but effortless. And it will always be a heel.”

While the Bal Harbour boutique will remain in situ through September 30, Beckham has long set her sights on a permanent Manhattan address to house her wares (and beauty) and it’s set to debut this fall. “It’s really a dream come true,” Beckham said of the still-under-wraps space. “We’ve spent such a lot of time, a long time, fixing the business and now we have a huge opportunity with regards to retail. New York is where it all began. I first started showing my collections there in 2008, so I’ve always had a soft spot for the city, I’m very, very, very excited about it.”