At the end of Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, held last night in a giant warehouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, guests exited to discover celebratory pink fireworks exploding behind a Victoria’s Secret branded boat waving a pink flag. From emblazoned golf carts to pink LED screens, the brand spelled out their hope for the night: “We Are Back!”
It was the first show since 2018, after multiple controversies and flagging sales shoved it off the air. And indeed, there were many of the markings of a typical VS show. The headline act, Cher donned sequin cargo pants and sang “Believe.” Bella Hadid breezed past the icon, blowing kisses to the audience in scarlet red underwear and an enormous feather coat. Longtime angels—Adriana Lima, Candice Swanepoel, Alessandra Ambrosio, Joan Smalls, Doutzen Kroes— once again strapped into their wings and bustiers and hit the runway as new-gen pop stars Lisa and Tyla performed. There were also a few surprises: Kate Moss and France’s former First Lady, Carla Bruni, both in their 50s, made their Victoria’s Secret debuts in relatively modest black lace ensembles.
Back in May, when Victoria’s Secret announced the show’s return, nostalgic fans took to TikTok to offer some advice. “We want the drama back… Give me the wings,” one young woman urged in a video with more than 30,000 likes. “We want a range of models doing the same thing they used to do.” For the most part, the brand heeded that advice. For the first time, plus-size runway regulars like Paloma Elsesser and Ashley Graham, and transgender fashion stars Valentina Sampaio and Alex Consani, walked the runway. While there was certainly a sense of excitement from the cast of angels and the live audience, the comeback show perhaps lacked the same level of over-the-top theatrics that fans might have been hoping for.
In the lead up to show’s return, a clip from the 2005 presentation in which Gisele emerges from a giant gift box dressed as a sexy Santa went viral. But this time, instead of giant gift boxes full of supermodels, there was a humble fog machine and some standard-issue trap-door floors from which models entered and exited the runway. Gone were the big bouncy blowouts, replaced by slick-backed hair and ponytails. Also absent was the show’s hero piece, the Fantasy Bra, which, in the past, has consisted of thousands of gemstones, 18-karat gold, and, one time, a 52-carat pear-shaped ruby. In its place was a slew of sequin-free panties and satin bras that were all available for sale on Amazon. (Prime Video hosted the live-stream.) Styled by former French Vogue editor Emmanuelle Alt, models dressed the part of, well, just sexy models as opposed to sexy bubbles, sexy surfboards, and sexy toy soldiers.
“It’s different,” said Behati Prinsloo, who has walked in ten Victoria’s Secret fashion shows since 2008, while getting her makeup done a few hours before the show. “It’s a whole new team. They are trying to teeter the line between making it old and glamorous but making it new and fresh.”
“Back in the day, leading up to [the V.S. Fashion Show], we would all be getting ready and working out and trying to feel good,” said Prinsloo, though a brand representative standing nearby jumped in to request we switch the topic to focus on the future, instead of the past, which the show leaned on.
The past, as has been widely reported, is not so shiny. The show briefly stopped because viewership and sales were down. Then, Ed Razek, the brand’s longtime chief marketing officer, made matters worse by telling an interviewer he wouldn’t cast “transsexuals” or plus-size models. The 2019 show was canceled, as if the campy runway show was the company’s major problem. The final nail in the (sexy) coffin were the ties between Les Wexner, Victoria’s Secret owner, and the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Razek resigned, and, in 2020, Wexner sold a majority stake in the company.
In 2023, the brand semi-revived the idea of the show, releasing The Victoria’s Secret Tour, a 90-minute long, voice-over-heavy documentary about four international artisans who collaborated with VS to make outfits that models wore in vaguely post-apocalyptic sets. On Amazon Prime, it has a 1.3 out of 5 stars, with one-star reviews ranging from “this has nothing to do with skin tones, diversity or inclusion but simply not having what VS is known for,” to “we miss the old VS fashion show.”
While the 2024 show was live-streamed, past years were like a reality show. Broadcast a month after the event, it spliced together footage of the casting process, model confessionals, montages of grueling workouts, and dramatized scenes from backstage. In the first broadcast presentation, from 2001, the British actor Rupert Everett, the voice of Prince Charming in the Shrek franchise, hosted. As part of his duties he gave a “virtual tour of Heidi Klum’s body,” during which he smelled her knees and rubbed his cheek against her thigh, which he described as “the meeting of a pashmina and a shahtoosh.”
A mostly disembodied Tyra Banks—the first model to wear angel wings on a Victoria’s Secret runway—hosted the live-stream this year. She started the show with a voiceover. “It’s all about the women,” she exclaimed. “Women take the reins and the spotlight!” She capped off the much-hyped revival with her own grand finale moment. After emerging from the floor enveloped in smoke, she strutted down the runway in sparkly leggings and a bedazzled corset. Sure, her smizing and a wink to the crowd elicited cheers and waves of nostalgia for America’s Next Top Model. But once the confetti began to pour from the rafters and the full cast followed behind her, the celebration felt more like a one-off reunion than the start of something new.
The finale at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show led by Tyra Banks
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