The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show Is Back, But What’s Changed?
The age of the Victoria’s Secret Angels sauntering down the runway and gracing the cover of the Victoria’s Secret catalogs has come and gone. And now, in a way, has come again with the return of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. While gone is the era of the VS Angels such as Gisele Bündchen, Adriana Lima, Heidi Klum, and Tyra Banks, once the embodiment and epitome of sexy, the company seeks to expand its view of what sexy means to all women.
But what will VS’s new version of sexy look like as they seek to transform its image into one that is more inclusive? Which begs another question, can Victoria’s Secret truly be empowering to women when the brand fails to empower those that make their clothing?
Let’s discuss.
The VS fashion show is often cited as a fantasy, but as calls for inclusivity arose in previous years, questions surrounding whose fantasy were brought to light. Rather rhetorically, consumers immediately pointed to the brand and Victoria’s Secret subsequent fashion shows of the not so distant past, which have sold sexy primarily through the male gaze. But the aim with the brand’s new show and format is to let women reclaim the narrative around what they believe sexy looks and feels like. This rebrand of sorts is called The Tour – available September 26th on Amazon Prime.
Long before influencer culture brought fashion shows onto our feeds, Victoria’s Secret brought a fashion show into our homes. In VS’ own way, it made a fashion show more accessible to the masses. Of course, this wasn’t without controversy and those shows had always been mildly problematic. But, there is a nostalgia to the Victoria’s Secret fashion show that speaks to many of our millennial hearts, and as a young girl, I grew up watching the spectacle with my sister. So, there is a thread of warmth and joy that is kindled when I think about the VS shows of old.
Let’s start there and unpack a little bit about the, albeit sometimes sordid, history of the Victoria’s Secret fashion shows.
The shows started in 1995 in NYC at the Plaza Hotel. But, the show wouldn’t hit network television until 2001. While Victoria’s Secret branding has traditionally focused on tall, often thin models, the VS fashion shows were often more inclusive than their counterparts, including some of the most notable Black women in fashion such as Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, Veronica Webb and Beverly Peele. However, this was the 90’s and the 2000’s and many runway shows were often whitewashed, Eurocentric versions of beauty, but this was, and continues to be, much of a fashion problem, not strictly a Victoria Secret problem. And it is very much a reflection of the time.
As calls for more diverse models on the runways grew, Victoria’s Secret also included Malaysian model, Ling Tan, Canadian-Pakistani model, Yasmeen Ghauri and Canadian-Indian model, Saira Mohan.
The prominence of Black models continued through the brand’s history with Selita Ebanks, Chanel Iman, Lais Ribeiro, Jasmine Tookes and Jourdan Dunn being prominent faces for the brand. It’s Shanghai show in 2017, boasted 55 models from 20 different countries.
So, why did they stop? Well, it was kind of due to a perfect, and potentially, unavoidable storm. Now, the Victoria’s Secret shows might not have been in the upper echelon of high fashion shows, but as mentioned earlier, it was the only show that was broadcast, around the world, mind you, and thus had an undeniable impact on pop culture.
Read the full article at Remake.
