The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show has been brought out of storage and is shaking off its dusty feathers to cram some of the world’s hottest women into their cheapest-looking thongs. Gigi and Bella Hadid, Kate Moss and daughter Lila are all somehow contractually obligated to don ill-fitting synthetic lingerie and parade down the catwalk to canned audience noise.
If the format feels dated, that’s because it is. Little has changed since the Angels were shut down in 2019 as the company scrambled to contain the damage.
You might forgive the executives for misjudging the spirit of the times. Skinny is unfortunately back in fashion, thanks to Ozempic and social media’s relentless need to always be camera-ready. The fashion industry has had enough of its half-hearted attempt to design clothes for women with fuller butts. VS dropped its own faux-feminist rebrand like a hot potato last year, blaming plus-size models for declining sales rather than their boring deep bras.
Elaborate “beauty and fitness” regimes (read: starvation and surgery) of the original Angels in the 1990s and 2000s have been reborn for the influencer generation, like Margaret Qualley slipping out of Demi Moore’s spine in The Substance. You can imagine the boring men in suits high-fiving each other in a boring boardroom somewhere and assuring each other that sex sells again.
But while ideas of skinny equating sexy go back to the turn of the millennium, today’s younger generation abhors sex. If you want to suffer psychological damage, just look at the teens on X (formerly Twitter) clutching their metaphorical pearls over pop stars posing doggy style while wearing layers of sparkling stage tights. “I’m 17 and I’m AFRAID of Sabrina Carpenter,” an apparently traumatized Zoomer tweeted. Who exactly, between these new Puritans and their Incel boy counterparts, is going to buy a pair of “Very Sexy Rose Lace Trim High Leg Thong Knickers” with “no back coverage” for £14?
As a statistically hornier millennial, there is nothing for me in VS: Reloaded. My cohort currently blames declining birth rates not because we are not performing well, but because we cannot afford a house to house the resulting offspring. I was never the target market to begin with, as my cup size swells to the point that only Bravissimo can meet my underwire needs. VS barely goes up to a DDD, firmly in the realm of what I call “fancy tits,” i.e. breasts that don’t disrupt fashion.
“The secrets beneath the rhinestones and feathers were rotten down to the poly-blend core.”
Mind you, as a closeted teenager I was admittedly very interested in the angels themselves. That classic dichotomy: do I want to be them or be with them? Rumors that Stella Maxwell hooked up with Miley Cyrus were my Roman empire. But that was before I realized the horrific reality of what these women had to endure to win their coveted wings. Just like coming out and becoming a vegetarian, these days I prefer to consume my photos of sexy ladies in a more ethical way.
Because the inescapable truth is that the secrets beneath the pebbles and feathers were rotten down to the poly-blend core.
The party line was that the VS show was canceled because bigoted executives refused to allow trans models on the runway, something the brand is clearly hoping to make positive headlines by casting Alex Consani and Valentina Sampaio. But it’s too little too late if inclusivity is just a nipple paste slapped haphazardly after decades of abuse.
USA canceled the shows because investigative journalists riding the MeToo wave got too close to the truth: that the entire setup of the show was a front for the rich and powerful men of parent company L Brand – and their friends – to gain access to and control women. USA was never about sex – it was always about power. Power over women in particular, and to escape any consequences in general.
“USA was never about sex – it was always about power. Power over women in particular.”
Ed Razek, deputy to L Brand founder Leslie Wexner, allegedly used VS Show casting calls to grope women, demand their personal phone numbers, entice them to private dinners and punish them if they refused. He allegedly sexually harassed Bella Hadid, telling her to “lose the panties” and making lewd comments about her breasts. Another model claimed he touched her crotch before the 2018 show. Employees spoke of a toxic workplace full of intimidation and bullying, where Razek would publicly berate his female staff for their weight and carbohydrate consumption.
As for billionaire Wexner, his finances were formerly managed by a man named Jeffery Epstein. The pedophile sex criminal can be seen lurking in photos of the first US show from 1995. Survivors told how Epstein claimed he could get them cast by luring young models into hotel rooms on the pretext to sexually abuse them. Vulnerable women had to make deals with devils to become an angel, Faustian pacts made in itchy thongs destined for the landfill.
Is five years enough to shake off this level of sleaze?
The contemporary brand Abercrombie & Fitch seems to have succeeded. After years of selling tween and teen teen clothing to topless male models, former CEO Mike Jeffries is accused of heading a sick sexual exploitation ring. In a horrific mirror of the goings-on at VS, vulnerable young male models claimed they were trafficked into events on the promise of being cast as A&F models, only to be drugged and pressured into sex with Jeffries and his partner. He denies the accusations.
“There isn’t enough Bare Vanilla Body Mist in the world to mask the lingering stench of USA’s recent past.”
Jeffries stepped down from A&F in 2014 when sales began to fall and left with a £20.5m pension – now suspended. The brand has since moved on from its nudity-heavy sales model and offers surprisingly good quality clothing in a wide range of sizes. They make good jeans and well-cut dresses that you can wear to a summer wedding without shocking older relatives. Consumers have voted with their wallets and the brand now reports a profit of £3.3 billion.
US has not attempted such rehabilitation. If you want to shop the show collection, you can see the gorgeous glassy-eyed Gigi Hadid posing as if tied up in baby pink and white striped underwear. Click through to a shockingly uninspired range of underwear in limited sizes; Sets made of 100 percent polyester that fit poorly even on a size zero model.
There may not be enough Bare Vanilla Body Mist in the world to mask the lingering stench of VS’s recent past, but this insipid comeback is an insult to VS’s survivors and consumers – and I seriously doubt anyone will buy it .