Dubbed “fashion for the table”, Victoria Beckham launched her debut tableware collection this week – a collaboration with German home and living brand Westwing. Promoting the new range on Instagram, the former Spice Girl is pictured sitting at the top of a dining table with her new dinner set, forks, and hand-blown champagne coupes laid out in front of her at, while offering hosting tips. “You know what happens in the Beckham house when David wants people to leave?” she jokes. “He literally walks around the room blowing out the candles hoping that people will get the hint.”

She then launches into her hosting rulebook. “One unforgivable sin: Paper napkins. It’s just not acceptable,” and “you should never even have your phone on the table during a nice dinner party. Very inelegant. And the germs on that phone. That phone is dirty. Oh yeah, my gosh, so disgusting.”

The promo is all tongue-in-cheek, of course, but her pricey tableware designs are not. They are being marketed as tablescaping heaven; tableware for the catwalk. Inspired by motifs in the designer’s ready-to-wear collections, she presents her off-white 12-piece porcelain dinnerware set, all yours for £249.

Victoria picks up one of her hammered-finished forks from a stainless steel cutlery set costing £129 – and declares it’s functional. “And take something as simple as a fork,” she says. “This is something that you use every day in your life. And those details are really, really important. The weight is important; it’s got a function”. And when it comes to her “stunning” stainless steel butter dish: “What else are you going to do? Slap a Lurpak wrapper on a table?”

Called “Serving Style. The Dining Collection”, the collaboration has all the lyrical charm of a collaboration with George at Asda, but the expectation is that it will sell out fast – so grab a set of four nondescript plates from her collection costing £119, while you can.

Apart from four salt and pepper shells (£84!), there is nothing particularly standout. If I am honest, the products feel very similar to many other items already available on the high street, from places like Zara and H&M.

Some are what I might expect from Argos, or even worse, a Poundland – especially her set of three bog-standard vases that look like milk bottles, costing £97. Not to mention the cheerful-looking emerald green “mouth-blown” tealight holders, which are being flogged for £54.99.

Her green bespoke co-branded packaging inspired by vintage jewellery boxes is probably the best-looking part of Beckham’s tableware collaboration, which is sad, really, considering her fashion and beauty ranges are so loved.

Call me a snob, but to me it feels more like bric-a-brac. If anybody gave me either for Christmas, I might pass them on to my children to put their paintbrushes in. If I want high-end, I’ll stick with Wedgwood, Le Creuset and an Hermes collectible porcelain piece, thanks.

Of course, homeware is just the latest bandwagon that celebrities are jumping on. Monetising their brand by expanding into furniture, and interior decor collections is being done by everyone from Stacey Solomon (At Home with Asda) to Reese Witherspoon who sells glasses and cups through her Southern-inspired lifestyle and fashion brand, Draper James, with matching tableware and dinnerware collections with retailer Crate & Barrel.

Gwyneth Paltrow, of course, has done it with her lifestyle brand Goop, and designed and launched tableware and home goods collections including hand-finished hexagonal plates, coloured wine glasses, mugs, serving pieces, and dining tables in 2024 with home retailer CB2, as well as high-end olive-branch printed tablecloths and matching napkins in collaboration with Cabana Magazine last year.

But let’s get it straight: Victoria isn’t “serving style” in this latest project. No, she is flogging a mediocre tableware range at top-notch prices. The porcelain is dishwasher- and microwave-safe, yes, but so is M&S’s, at half the cost. In fact, I’d posit this tableware range is Brand Beckham’s biggest overstep yet.

In his lengthy six-page Instagram statement in January, estranged son Brooklyn accused his parents, David and Victoria, of prioritising “Brand Beckham” and public image over genuine family relationships.

Now we can all have a slice of the Beckham family dysfunction in our kitchen. And the brand extension of family life doesn’t stop there. Victoria is also pouring over £2m into her 15-year-old daughter Harper’s beauty brand Harlo by Harper – before she’s even done her GCSEs. Romeo was spotted at the FI in Singapore at the weekend being hugged by family friend Kim Kardashian, and has also expanded “Brand Beckham” by pivoting from football to launch Intra, his own high-end streetwear-meets-football label.

But we all know the darker side of Brand Beckham – and it’s not all happy clappy family meals and hosting. Back in the real world, the Beckham family is torn apart by Brooklyn’s estrangement – and bitter fallout. The lack of heart in her range of serving platters and napkin rings shows that while the show goes on, cracks are starting to appear.

Victoria Beckham should note that a beautiful table is lovely, but it’s the people around it, and the happy person who brings them together, that make a dinner party a roaring success. Nothing says misery than four white dinner plates for £94 and an empty chair at the table. This collection reeks of nothingness, not the laughter of a truly joyful occasion. That might say more about Brand Beckham than she wanted to reveal. Who knew a sad little tealight could speak a thousand words?