MODELLING WITH DAUGHTER PHOENIX MELANIE BROWN ON PLANNING HER WEDDING IN ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL - WITH HELP FROM VICTORIA BECKHAM

As a member of the world's biggest ever girlband, Melanie Brown is used to being photographed and scrutinised. Luckily it hasn't stifled her selfimage or sense of identity.

- ROSALIND POWELL

"You can analyse it ten ways to Sunday, if that's a saying, but I'm a Northern girl. I'm real and I'm honest. I have curly, afro hair, I have boobs, I have a butt," the straighttalking Spice Girl tells HELLO!. "I'm rearing three girls and I want to be able to represent myself honestly and confidently."

Melanie's championing of a positive body image and selfacceptance has clearly rubbed off on daughters Phoenix, 24, Angel, 16, and 12-year-old Madison.

"Growing up around a big personality, you learn watching how she conducts herself," says model and DJ Phoenix.

"She's always told me: 'Never be afraid to ask questions, chase your dreams and wear whatever you want.' She encourages us to be comfortable and do what makes us feel happy."

We are talking as Melanie, aka Scary Spice, teams up with Phoenix to launch her latest edition of fashion brand Pour Moi's Own Your Confidence campaign.

SOMETHING FOR ALL

Their choices, which feature lingerie, nightwear and sportswear, are the second time mother and daughter have collaborated with the clothing brand to celebrate bodies of different shapes and sizes.

"Why do we have to pigeonhole ourselves to be perfect when nobody is?" asks Melanie, whose own confidence and happiness is due in no small part to her fiancé, Rory McPhee, the entrepreneur and hairdresser with whom she lives in Leeds.

Having first known each other as acquaintances more than two decades ago, the couple quietly got together after Melanie returned to the UK in 2019 for the Spice Girls reunion tour, and Rory proposed at Cliveden House hotel last year.