Victoria Beckham's reputation bolstered at London fashion conference

Victoria Beckham's status as a respected style authority was confirmed today when the designer appeared at an international fashion conference in London. Beckham was revealed as the guest speaker at the International Herald Tribune event in an announcement that was met with palpable surprise among the designer-clad delegates from 37 countries. Beckham was a last minute addition to the programme, taking her place alongside international heavyweight designers such as Karl Lagerfeld, Paul Smith and Tommy Hilfiger. On stage she admitted that the conference was "a very grown up thing for me to do". Beckham's own fashion brand – despite being able to boast critical and commercial success – is still very much in its infancy at just two years old. In a bid to acknowledge her relative inexperience the ex-Spice girl was initially reticent about appearing and agreed only on the condition that her speech would not be advertised beforehand. Wearing a tangerine dress and long ponytail, she used her 15 minute slot to discuss how she is slowly building up the Victoria Beckham brand "with baby steps because I'd like to still be around in 20 years' time". The designer admitted that when she started her label – which now includes dresses, denim, sunglasses and a handbag line – the idea was not to build a fashion brand, "I just wanted a creative outlet, it started as my hobby but I am very passionate about it," she said. When pressed as to how it was possible to run a London-based label while living in Los Angeles, Beckham said she was "always on Skype with my design team while wearing a dressing gown". Beckham, who shows her collections in New York, did not rule out the possibility of showing her collection in London and said she may consider adding a shoe collection in the future. However she claimed not to be "that interested" in menswear and when asked about her husband's role at her brand she quipped: "He looks good. I'm the funny one." Earlier in the day, Angela Ahrendts and Christopher Bailey – Burberry's CEO and chief creative officer respectively – used the conference to announce the label's latest initiative. Early next year they will launch Burberry Bespoke – a personalised service where customers will be able to order and customise their own trench coat online, which will theoretically offer more than 12 million individual permutations of the design. The pair would not be drawn on what the price of this luxury service would be, saying only there was likely to be 12 million different prices.