This week, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show returned after a six-year hiatus, promising us an event that would “reflect who we are today.” The implication? A more inclusive, empowering and diverse experience for their customer base. While this breaking news went over some people’s heads, my extremely millennial group chat of women in their thirties lit up. Could a Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show leave us feeling empowered? My experiences with Victoria’s Secret go way back. As an early high schooler, I’d skip back to whichever friend’s house had free-to-air TV to tune in it. Adriana Lima was the screensaver on my shared family computer (I was 13, and my parents didn’t know how to change it). My high school friends and I had our favourite Victoria’s Secret Angels, the way primary school-age kids have their favourite Pokémon.
I personally found Adriana Lima’s pre-show liquid diet deeply inspiring. The woman didn’t drink water 12 hours before a show because it caused bloating. What dedication! I couldn’t get my biology homework done! Meanwhile, some of my friends favoured Candice, and others favoured Giselle. We’d debate who was prettier and skinnier all the way home from school, and we never considered whether the Victoria’s Secret Models were empowering. Sure, I’d read Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth and was aware that the capitalist spectacle of beautiful women was a marketing ploy to keep me subjugated under the patriarchy. But that didn’t stop me from worrying that my shins were shorter than my thighs after reading the Brazilian models were receiving implants in order to be cast for the runway.
At some point, I read enough feminist literature, did enough therapy, and got busy enough to stop worrying (as much) about how I measured up to these women. The realisation that, as a heterosexual woman, most men wouldn’t find me revolting if my body didn’t fit Doutzen Kroes’ exact measurements probably also, sadly, played a role in me forgetting about them. And it seemed the rest of the world forgot them, too. Chantel Fernandez, co-author of Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret And The Unravelling Of An American Icon, noted in conversation with Amy Odell on The Back Row that Victoria’s Secret’s “sales never fill off a cliff,” presumably because people will always need semi-affordable bras. They did, however, slide into irrelevancy. In 2019, the show was cancelled because of declining viewership—impressionable 13-year-olds weren’t watching free-to-air like they used to.
Their consumers were also less tolerant of transphobic statements from executives like Ed Razek, or, in a post-Me Too environment, the multiple allegations of sexual harassment and misogyny levelled at him in 2020. Razek stepped down, but he wasn’t the only major problem for the brand. Amid the body positivity movement, the avalanche of thin, largely white women trotting down the runway everywhere started to seem, at worst, toxic and, at best naff. So, the brand slid into cultural obscurity.
I was initially surprised when Victoria’s Secret announced they would be returning this year on Instagram in a post that read: “We’ve read the comments and hear you. The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is BACK and will reflect who we are today, plus everything you know and love – the glamour, runway, wings, musical entertainment, and more!” The social media managers’ allusion to fans clamouring for the show’s return felt optimistic. Still, I could see how they’d feel it was the right cultural moment. The Y2K revival has made almost everything cringe-worthily 2000s popular again, so why couldn’t they add a scattering of BLACKPINK and more diverse casting and make magic?
On the pink carpet, it was evident that the show’s producers wanted viewers to feel capital E empowered. “The cast of models—50 models from 25 different countries—it is going to, I think, just blow everyone away,” producer Jamie Schaffer told Olivia Culpo. It just spans the spectrum, and everybody’s welcome. We cast everybody for their confidence and their fierceness, and I think that’s what’s going to shine through.” So, did everybody feel welcome? Did I feel empowered? I certainly felt entertained as Gigi Hadid and her immaculate flipped bob rose through the floor and unfurled her wings. I was also surprised. After all, there were exciting new models on the runway, from Alex Consani to Paloma Elsesser and Jill Kortleve. When you open a show allegedly about putting diversity and modernity first, a white, thin, all-American blonde, you send a message to the viewer about the brand you are and the show they’re about to see. Gigi would have been an unsurprising casting choice back when I was avidly tuning in 2003.
While it was nice to see some curvier models, from Paloma Elsesser to Ashley Graham, they were more covered up than the “straight”-sized models, making their presence on the runway somewhat underwhelming. Meanwhile, the vintage angels looked like they’d been cryogenically frozen in time, doing nothing to convince me they’d ditched their pre-show waterfasting. Despite this, I happily sent messages back and forth throughout the show in my millennial group chats, cooing over the Hadid sisters dancing, recoiling in horror at Adriana Lima’s tights (why), and wondering, along with TikTok, where the big blow waves had gone.
The fun costumes were also missing. The brand engaged Joseph Altuzarra as its first atelier designer and former French Vogue editor Emmanuelle Alt as its stylist. But all that fashion robbed a show that was always about shilling moderately priced bras with the spectacle of its naughties exuberance. I wanted to see Cara Delevigne dressed like a chaotic footballer. After all, fashion month has come and gone. Did I, or any of my friends, feel empowered at the end of the show? After watching 50-something models prance down the runway, a handful of which could be considered curvy, I felt entertained (celebrity spotting is always fun – Kate Moss is there!) and acutely aware I hadn’t been going to pilates much recently. There are only so many thigh gaps, tiny waists and tiny arms you can see before your 13-year-old Tumblr brain is activated like Ridley in Alien awakening from a decades-long sleep.
Tyra Banks closed the show, and it was nice to see that after years of public dieting, the supermodel had embraced her curves. However, she’s the same woman who spent decades fat-shaming America’s Next Top Model contestants while millions of teenagers watched on. Indeed, she was the perfect person to close the show. A contradictory character who, despite clearly desiring redemption, can’t shake her association with a moment in culture in which beauty ideals zealously dictated disordered eating and white, cis beauty standards. The 2024 Victoria’s Secret Show wasn’t a triumphant moment of intersectional feminism – but I did forget it almost as soon as I finished it, not considering a liquid fast. Given my previous experiences with the angels, this is possibly the most I could have hoped for. Still, it raises the question of where the runway has to go from here.
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Read the original article in ELLE Australia.
