Victoria’s Secret is banking on bombshells all over again. “A part of our transformation is putting our customer at the center of everything we do, and our customers told us loud and clear that they missed the fashion show. That was the jumping off point,” said Sarah Sylvester, the brand’s executive vice president of marketing. The questions, as Ubers queued in the drop-off line at the Brooklyn Navy Yard location of the rebooted Victoria’s Secret show on Tuesday night, was would the show revert to form or would it be a more inclusive, welcoming space? And would the six years between the last runway and this one impact the overall aesthetic? The answers were yes and no. Kate Moss, Carla Bruni, Eva Herzigova, and Tyra Banks, all of whom are 50 or older, walked the show. Alex Consani and Valentina Sampaio became the first transgender models to appear on the VS runway, which was a sticking point with the former architects of the show. And the brand has never featured more mid-size and plus-size models, though it must be said that the straight-size models looked overwhelmingly slim.
While the cast wasn’t representative of all the ways that you can be a woman, at least it was an improvement over its past. As for the spangly lingerie, the enormous angel wings and their trusses, and the challenging spike heels, according to the brand what’s sexy now looks remarkably like what was sexy then. Speaking on Vogue’s The Run-Through podcast, Chantal Fernandez pointed out that Victoria’s Secret “set the standard that unless you were wearing a molded cup underwire bra you were not dressed for the outside world. And that idea has shifted so much. You see women now going without a bra or they’re wearing a soft cup, non-molded. You want a more natural look.” The campy, showgirl fun had a whiff of nostalgia. If you do want something more natural, or modern, you’ll just have to buy your lingerie somewhere else. |