Spice Girls Get the Royal Stamp of Approval For 30th Anniversary

You’ve bought the records, concert tickets and merch, seen the film. Now you can spice up your life with commemorative Spice Girls postage stamps, 15 in total.

The U.K.’s Royal Mail will issue the stamps later this month as a small way of celebrating the Girl Power pack’s 30th anniversary.

All told, the mail service’s bounty includes stamp sets, posters, postcards and collectables, with each piece available from Jan. 11. The top prize is the “Spice Girls Gold Stamps Set,” presented as a limited-edition (1,000 sets) featuring the issue’s stamps layered in 24-carat gold, and priced at £149.99 ($190).

For the skint among us following the Christmas break, 30p (38c) will buy a Spice Girls “First Day” envelope.

The campaign, which celebrates the “U.K.’s biggest-ever girl group,” reads a statement, marks the first time the Royal Mail has dedicated an entire stamp issue to a female pop group.

The 10 main stamps include images from the Brit Awards in 1997, featuring Ginger Spice in her iconic Union Jack dress, and their performance at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

An additional five stamps are available on a miniature sheet, comprising individual snaps from the photoshoot for the 1998 feature film, Spice World.

The lineup of Baby (Emma Bunton), Posh (Victoria Beckham), Ginger (Geri Halliwell-Horner), Sporty (Melanie Chisholm) and Scary Spice (Melanie Brown) assembled in 1994.

Two years later, with Simon Cowell on board as manager, the girl group dropped “Wannabe,” a debut that would set the tone for a new era of British pop.

“Wannabe” was the first of the Spice Girls’ nine No. 1 songs in the U.K., and, in the U.S., the catchy track logged four weeks at the summit of the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1997. It’s still going strong; “Wannabe” passed one billion streams on Spotify over the recent holiday period.

The Spice Girls reunited in 2022 to celebrate Geri’s 50th birthday, an event that doubled-up as the 25th anniversary of their sophomore album Spiceworld, released back in 1997. There’s no talk, however, on the classic lineup hitting the studio or the road anytime soon.

Previously, the Royal Mail has issued stamps celebrating the careers of The Beatles (in 2007), Pink Floyd (2016), Queen (2020), Paul McCartney (2021), The Rolling Stones (2022) and Iron Maiden (2023).

Check out the Spice Girls Stamps here.

Lars Brandle

Billboard