by The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is out of storage, shaking off its dusty feathers to scoop up some of the world’s hottest women in its cheapest trinkets. Contractually, Gigi and Bella Hadid, Kate Moss and her daughter Lila had to wear ill-fitting synthetic lingerie and parade down the runway to the roar of the crowd.
If the date format depends, that’s because it is. Little has changed since the Angels were sacked in 2019 as the company tries to do damage control.
You could perhaps forgive the executives for mistaking the zeitgeist. Unfortunately, Skinny is fashionable again, thanks to Ozempic and the need to stay camera-ready on social media. The fashion industry has become obsessed with its attempt to design half-arched clothing for women with fuller arches. VS dropped its own faux-feminist rebrand last year like a hot potato, blaming plus-size models for plunging sales rather than its naff plunge bras.
Elaborate “beauty and fitness” regimes (read: starvation and surgery) that the original Angels of the Nineties and Nineties brought to the influencer generation have been reborn, like Margaret Qualley slipping out of Demi Moore’s spine in The Substance. You can just imagine the savage men in haute couture suits meeting each other in a quiet boardroom somewhere, assuring each other that sex sells again.
But even though subtle ideas that equate to sexiness date back to the turn of the millennium, today’s younger generation hates sex. If you want to suffer psychic damage, just watch the teenagers on X (formerly Twitter) hurl their metaphorical pearls over pop stars posing dog-style while wearing layers of stage tights moon “I’m 17 and I’m scared of Sabrina Carpenter” tweeted an apparently traumatized Zoomer. Between these New Puritans and their Incel boy counterparts, who exactly is going to buy a pair of “Very Sexy Rose Lace Trim High Leg Thong Knickers” without a “back cover” for £14?
As a statistically hornier millennial, there’s nothing for me in VS: Reloaded either. My cohort is currently being blamed for declining birth rates, not because we’re not pushing but because we can’t afford to house the offspring as a result. overflow to the point that only Bravissimo can meet my underlaying needs. VS barely goes up to DDD, firmly in the realm of what I call “tits chic” ie breasts that don’t interfere with fashion.
“The secrets about the rhinestones and feathers were rotten to the heart multi-compound.”
Mind you, when I was a closeted teenager, I admitted that I was very into the Angels themselves. That classic dichotomy: do I want to be with them or be with them? Rumors that Stella Maxwell was hooking up with Miley Cyrus was my Roman Empire. But that was before I realized the terrible reality these women had to endure to win their coveted wings. Like coming out and being a vegetarian, I prefer to eat my sexy lady pictures more ethically these days.
Because the inescapable truth was that the secrets beneath the rhinestones and feathers were rotten to the core.
The party line was that the VS show was canceled because bigoted executives refused to allow trans models on the catwalk, which the brand is clearly hoping to garner positive headlines by casting Alex Consani and Valentina Sampaio. But it’s too late when inclusiveness is nothing more than nappy paste haphazardly whipped up over decades of abuse.
VS canceled the shows because investigative journalists riding the MeToo wave were getting too close to the truth: the show was all set up as a cover for the rich, powerful men at parent company L Brand – and their friends . women. VS was never about sex – it was always about power. Power over women specifically, and to escape any consequences in general.
“VS was never about sex – it was always about power. Power over women specifically.”
Ed Razek, vice-founder of Leslie Wexner’s L Brand, allegedly used VS show casting calls to grope women, demand their personal phone numbers, weave them into private dinners and punish them if they refused. He reportedly sexually harassed Bella Hadid, telling her to “drop her panties” and making lewd comments about her breasts. Another model alleged that he removed his crotch before the 2018 show. Employees spoke of a toxic workplace rife with harassment and bullying and Razek was said to have publicly attacked his female staff about their weight and wearing a tie.
As for billionaire Wexner, his finances were managed solely by Jeffery Epstein. The pedophile sex offender can be seen lurking in photos from the inaugural VS show in 1995. Survivors spoke of how Epstein claimed he could seduce them, luring young models to hotel rooms under the pretext of sexually assaulting them. Vulnerable women had to deal with devils to become angels, Faustian pacts made in similar colors destined for landfill.
Is five years enough to shake off this level of makeup?
It seems to have been managed by contemporary brand Abercrombie & Fitch. After spending years selling tweens and teeny teenage clothes with topless male models, former CEO Mike Jeffries has been accused of leading a sick sex exploitation ring. In a shocking reflection of the progress at VS, vulnerable young male models claimed they were trafficked to events they were promised to dress as A&F models only to be drugged and pressured into having sex with Jeffries and his party. He denies the charges.
“There isn’t enough Bare Vanilla Body Mist in the world to mask the lingering stench of recent VS.”
Jeffries resigned from A&F in 2014 when sales began to stall, leaving him with a £20.5 million pension – now suspended. Since then the brand has lost its nudity-heavy sales model, offering great quality clothes in a wide range of sizes. They make good jeans and well-cut dresses that you can wear to a summer wedding without surprising elderly relatives. Consumers have voted with their wallets, and the brand is now reporting a £3.3 billion profit.
VS made no attempt at such recovery. If you want to “shop the show collection” you can see the gorgeous but glazed Gigi Hadid tied like a pig in a pink-and-white striped necklace. Click through to a range of uninspired undies in limited sizes; 100 percent polyester sets that fit poorly even on a size zero model.
Maybe there aren’t enough Bare Vanilla Body Mists in the world to hide the lingering stench of VS lately, but this insignificant comeback is an insult to VS survivors and consumers – and I doubt they’ll buy it’s anyone.
