The New York Times profiled Victoria Beckham for its T-magazine offshoot, and the results are mildly surprising. The photoshoot, such as it is, is made up of two laid-back photos of Victoria working from home. Of course, the journo freely admits to watching the entire (highly strategic) setup of the Coke and Pepsi cans in the background but says Victoria cheekily resisted putting grapes in the “office” photo by saying, “We don’t want anyone to know I eat. Why ruin that?” She has such a wicked sense of humor.

What struck me most about the interview is that the NYT reporter initially mistook Victoria, who was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, no shoes, and a messy ponytail, for a nanny because she looked so relaxed and was playing with Harper. Little Harper was around for most of the interview until Victoria put her down for a nap. What follows is a rather endearing talk with the former Posh Spice about her work, David, and her children:

Her unyielding ambition: “I want to reach as many women throughout the world as I can. There are more categories that I want to enter into. I have five categories at the moment. But at some point I would love to do shoes, I would love to do fragrance, I would love to do makeup, I would like to do underwear. There are so many things I want to do. I want to get bigger and bigger. I absolutely want an empire.”

She already misses Los Angeles: “I am very career minded, and I think my personality is more suited to America. I am a working mum.”

David does the cooking? “Yes, he’s really good.” When David was playing soccer in Italy a few years ago, she explained, the family was living in L.A., and he was left alone on his days off. “So he decided to go to culinary school.”

The kids are (relatively) normal: “We have what I consider to be normal birthday parties. I’ve been to parties in L.A. that are mind-blowing. I mean, quite literally mind-blowing. People get cellphones in the party bag, that sort of thing. Fabulous, fabulous parties. Ours aren’t like that. They are normal kids’ parties. We’ll have a bouncy castle, a face painter.”

She wants to look natural in magazines: “Normally in a fashion shoot you’d be plastered in makeup, in amazing clothes. I find it embarrassing when you don’t look like yourself, when you’ve had tons of retouching. I don’t want to be made to look like I’m 25. I’m 39. I don’t have any issues with my age.”

Why doesn’t she smile more often? “I dunno. I smile in family pictures. When you’re in a position to be paparazzi-ed just walking down the street, you’d look a little daft if you were smiling all the time.” (Apparently, the eternally sunny-seeming Kate Middleton never got that particular memo).

On brand Beckham “You know, we don’t look at it as a big brand. It is, but it happened very, very naturally. It seems that now everybody wants to make a brand; everybody wants to build a brand. Ours happened very organically. The most important thing is each other and the children.”

Why she became a designer: “I just wanted to create beautiful clothes, good quality clothes I wanted to wear myself. And then I wanted to create handbags, because I couldn’t find the right handbag that I wanted to carry. Then I couldn’t find the right sunglasses, so I decided to make my own sunglasses.”

[From NYT T magazine]

Victoria really has come a long way, baby. I remember years ago when she had massive boob implants, dressed like a total chav, and fit right in with the soccer WAGs. Back then, there were even rumors that a lot of designers were offended that she’d wear their clothing in public, but there was nothing that they could do about it since she purchased the clothing. Of course, that could have just been some really mean and untrue gossip, but whatever the case, Victoria has had the last laugh.

Here’s some proof that Victoria really is hands-on with her kids. She’s got all four of them minding their manners at LAX in early June in these photos. Sure, Victoria looks utterly ridiculous walking around in platform sandals while carrying little Harper, but otherwise, she’s a pretty normal mom. Brooklyn, Romeo, and Cruz obviously adore her, and they all seem like really good kids.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and NYT