Getty Images for Victoria’s Secret
They’re bringing sexy back. Because no one really wanted it to go away.
In May, Victoria’s Secret announced their once iconic Fashion Show lingerie extravaganza is “BACK and will reflect who we are today, plus everything you know and love—the glamour, runway, wings, musical entertainment, and more!”
But who they are today is basically who they were during their hotness heyday, with a small expansion of their vision of beauty.
Tonight’s panty parade aired live on Amazon Prime, reverted to familiar faces, veterans who have already donned the famous wings before it was cancelled in 2019.
Celestial bodies like Tyra Banks, Gigi Hadid, Mayowa Nicholas, Barbara Palvin, Behati Prinsloo, Jasmine Tookes, and Adriana Lima.
The splashy additions are plus sized mannequins Paloma Elesser and Ashley Graham who said she agreed to walk because the brand is planning on adding larger sizes.
“I really like to be a woman of my word,” Graham who has over 21 million Instagram followers told Entertainment Tonight. “And make sure that the people I line up with and the companies I line up with are servicing the women who follow me that are larger.”
They added former French first Lady Carla Bruni, still a babe at 56.
Yes for all the handwringing, all the lectures on body positivity and corporate self-flagellation, it’s back to hot supermodels strutting down the runway in skimpy, sparkly bras and underwear – not meant for mere mortals.
The yearly lingerie show was put on ice due to poor ratings and a bad stench from inside corporate headquarters, which was reeling from #Metoo tumult and associations with Jeffrey Epstein. Their downfall was accelerated by Ed Razek, who was the show’s architect, telling Vogue in 2018 that they shouldn’t have “transsexuals” walk “because the show is a fantasy.”
Rezak was subsequently browbeaten by trans models and forced to capitulate. “I apologize. To be clear, we would absolutely cast a transgender model for the show,” he then resigned in 2019.
The once dominant brand giant put themselves in a cultural purgatory and tried to rebrand in 2021 as a vehicle for female empowerment.
They formed the very official sounding, VS Collective, a group of seven women, many non-models, tasked with replacing the titillating with driving “positive change.”
Or in the case of member Megan Rapinoe, to lead the shame campaign from within.
In a New York Times piece to unveil their new initiative, Rapinoe called the company, “patriarchal, sexist, viewing not just what it meant to be sexy, but what the clothes were trying to accomplish through a male lens and through what men desired. And it was very much marketed toward younger women.”
She added that it was “really harmful.”
But it turns out, one lesbian activist’s “harmful” is a whole lotta people’s awesome.
Last year, they soft launched back into shows with #thetour which was a collection of bizarre film vignettes featuring an array of models in sloppy clothing concoctions. It was neither appealing nor aspirational.
Now the brand’s admitting their original formula was successful for a reason. Both men and women appreciate the female form.
After all, the embrace of pre #metoo sensuality didn’t go away, it just moved to OnlyFans, Instagram or, as was the case last spring, SNL when Sydney Sweeney and her breasts hosted.
And now we can stop pretending a company selling umentionables is meant to be a moral arbiter. Sometimes a push up bra is just a push up bra.