• by Barbara Lippert , Columnist, October 21, 2024

What is a fashion show, if not a more rarified ad?

Designers promote their most dramatic and attention-getting looks selling (in more modified form) in the next season, seizing on what’s original in visuals that now, most importantly, go viral.

So I understand why Victoria’s Secret, for the first time in six years, would want to reclaim the glory and dominance of its own past shindigs.

The first VS fashion show debuted in 1995; by 1999, its legend and popularity had grown so much that the mall-based retail brand bought time on Super Bowl XXXIII to announce a 72-hour countdown to a webcast of the show.

It resulted in over 2 million viewers (in retrospect, mostly men) switching from network TV to their computers to catch it.

The show featured the most popular Amazonian high-fashion models of the moment (dubbed “Angels”) pounding down the runway dressed in giant wings and little else.

They wore VS merch, like its “Miracle” push-up bra, providing minimal coverage at its most provocative.

Word was that the show “broke the internet.”

And it kept growing, with its most go-go years occurring from about 2000 to 2016.  Victoria's Secret recorded peak worldwide net sales in 2016 of $7.78 billion.  By then, the show had become a legit cultural event, broadcast on network television (both ABC and CBS.)  It came off as something between a kitschy soft-core night with showgirls in Vegas and a concert with contemporary pop and hip-hop stars, including Kanye West. 

Reliably, it attracted protests from both the left and right: feminists objected to its cheesy objectification of women, while evangelical and family “decency” groups called it “immoral” and demanded that TV stations pull it.

Plus, there was always controversy roiling under the surface. The shows were all about “the male gaze”  and attracted high-profile finance bros, included sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who later died in prison, but at the time claimed to manage L Brands’ CEO Les Wexner’s portfolio.

For a few years, Epstein passed himself off as a “scout” for VS models, some of whom later testified that he used it as a ruse to molest them.

Add the rude 2017 comments of the brand’s CMO, Ed Razek, about refusing to hire transgender and plus-sized models, and the brand’s reputation (and flagging sales) were getting very problematic.

At a time of #MeToo, body positivity and transgender rights, younger customers were moving to newer, more inclusive brands, like Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty.

The show was put on pause.

Fast-forward to 2023, when a new regime of female leaders launched "Victoria's Secret World Tour," an updated show on Amazon Prime Video. The reaction was quiet.

Thus, VS came back with a really big show this time, live-streamed (the 1999 version “streamed online” ) via its social media channels. It was so attuned to the times that even the fake feathers on the models’ wings were PETA-approved. 

The cast was racially diverse, with two transgender models and catwalkers boasting a potpourri of body sizes, shapes and ages. (Carla Bruni, anyone?)

Lisa from K-pop group Blackpink opened the show, and then supermodel Gigi Hadid rose from the stage wearing the old enormous wings, which unlike in earlier shows, seemed to hobble her a bit. (Other models sported what looked like pipe cleaner and aluminum foil versions.)

The show ended with Cher performing “Believe,” which brought down the house.

As I watched the live stream, the enormously wide runway, more like a stage, seemed to flatten the performers, making them look lost in space. Some of the clothing included far more material, but the black ensembles reminded me of Elvira.

There’s no doubt that the brand has taken a major financial hit in the last few years, while market share continues to decline.

To fix these problems, it needs to bring out a mainstream line that will unify and excite teens and young women, like the “PINK” brand did back in the day.

And trying to rehabilitate this show, with its creepy, retrograde brand DNA, seems inauthentic at best, and irrelevant for young women who were toddlers during the brand’s heyday.

It’s time to accept that the Angels have broken wings.

Still, there’s hope. Less than two months ago, VS hired Hillary Super, former CEO of Rihanna's Savage x Fenty brand, as its new chief executive.

She’s exactly the kind of marketer the brand should have, not to try to “break” the internet again, but rather to build a modern, compelling company with its own fit, form and angles.