The Spice Girls are an English pop girl group formed in 1994. The group originally consisted of Melanie Brown ("Scary Spice"), Melanie Chisholm ("Sporty Spice"), Emma Bunton ("Baby Spice"), Geri Halliwell ("Ginger Spice"), and Victoria Beckham, nee Adams ("Posh Spice"). They were signed to Virgin Records and released their debut single "Wannabe" in 1996, which hit number one in 37 countries and established them as a global phenomenon. Their debut album Spice sold more than 31 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling album by a female group in history.

The Spice Girls have been revered as the biggest pop phenomenon of the 1990s due to their international record sales, iconic symbolism and "omnipresence" in the late 1990s.  At the 2000 Brit Awards, the group received the Outstanding Contribution to Music award to mark their dominance of the global music scene in the 1990s. The iconic symbolism of the Spice Girls in the 1990s is partly attributed to their era-defining outfits, the most notable being the Union Jack dress that Geri Halliwell wore at the 1997 Brit Awards. The dress has achieved iconic status, becoming one of the most prominent symbols of 1990s pop culture. The status of the Spice Girls as 1990s pop icons is also attributed to their vast merchandising and willingness to be a part of a media-driven world. Their unprecedented appearances in adverts and the media solidified the group as a phenomenon--an icon of the decade and for British music.  Some sources, especially those in the United Kingdom, revere the Spice Girls as gay icons. In a UK survey of more than 5,000 gay men and women, Victoria Beckham placed 12th and Halliwell placed 43rd in a ranking of the Top 50 gay icons of all time. Halliwell was also the recipient of the Honorary Gay Award at the 2016 Attitude Awards. In a 2005 interview, Emma Bunton attributed their large gay fan base to the group's fun-loving nature, open-mindedness, and their love of fashion and dressing up, concluding that: "I'm so flattered that we've got such a huge gay following, it's amazing."  In 1999, a study conducted by the British Council found that the Spice Girls were the second-best-known Britons internationally--only behind then-Prime Minister Tony Blair--and the best-known Britons in Asia. In 2006, ten years after the release of their debut single, the Spice Girls were voted the biggest cultural icons of the 1990s with 80 percent of the votes in a UK poll of 1,000 people carried out for the board game Trivial Pursuit, stating that "Girl Power" defined the decade. The Spice Girls also ranked number ten in the E! TV special, The 101 Reasons the '90s Ruled.

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