Victoria’s Secret fails to stay relevant with a tired pageant of diamante thongs

Despite a star-studded lineup including Kate Moss, Cher and Gigi Hadid, the fashion show’s return looked like an outdated throwback

It had all the ingredients which might conventionally make for a great fashion show – Kate Moss making a rare catwalk appearance at 50! Her daughter Lila following in her supermodel mother’s footsteps! Gigi Hadid creating a striking opening moment! A performance by Cher! You can’t fault the Victoria’s Secret show production team for not having ticked every box in an effort to make the extravaganza relevant again after a six-year absence.
But what a great fashion show really needs is some great fashion. And women weighed down by infantilising angel wings and contorted into all manner of teeny-tiny strings and straps now looks more like an outdated throwback than a celebration of brilliant creativity. Bring in all the big-name stars you like, but ultimately this remained a tired pageant of thongs and diamante-strewn bustiers.
For some watching last night’s show, the issue was less to do with sparkly underwear feeling out of place on the catwalk and more that the production had not actually gone far enough in recapturing the glitz a Victoria’s Secret show would once have unashamedly embodied. “Soulless”, “most boring show ever” and “this is not the show we wanted” were some of the accusations levelled at the brand on social media. 
These are the customers who dreamt of a return to the twinkling fantasy of yore, a time when upwards of 12 million viewers would tune in to see which Angel would sport that year’s Fantasy Bra, a tradition which saw Gisele Bündchen model the $12.5 million “Sexy Splendor Fantasy bra” in 2005 and Candice Swanaepol be graced with the honour of showcasing the $10 million “Royal Fantasy bra” in 2013. 
It’s astounding, really, that the company saw fit to bring back the concept at all, so impossible was the task of getting it right after it had all previously gone so wrong. 
The show became so mired in all that felt grimy in the wake of MeToo that it should have been consigned to the history books after the final show in 2018. That was the culmination of a 13-year-run which peaked in the mid-2010s as the acme of glamour and celebrated a very specific version of femininity – one which involved intense workout regimes, being a size 8, having bouncy, shiny hair and a dazzling smile – which had no hint of the inclusivity drive which has dominated the fashion landscape since, with efforts to include more models of different sizes and ethnicities.
Any Victoria’s Secret show reboot was always going to be haunted by the ghost of shows past, as well as all that has taken place in the interim, namely the accusations, published by the New York Times in 2020, that Ed Razek, chief marketing officer at Victoria’s Secret parent company L Brands until 2019, had “presided over an entrenched culture of misogyny, bullying, and harassment”. Razek apologised and stepped down but the show was cancelled later that year.
In step, the underwear label has suffered its own identity crisis as sales have dropped (going from revenues of $7.5 billion (£6.2 billion) in 2020 to projected revenues of $6 billion (£4.5 billion) in 2024) and its executives have grappled with how to sell underwear to women today. 
The label promised to “bring sexy back” last year, noting that its efforts to align with a more “woke” approach to lingerie had been unsuccessful.  “Sexiness can be inclusive,” said Greg Unis, the then brand president of Victoria’s Secret, last October. “Sexiness can celebrate the diverse experiences of our customers and that’s what we’re focused on.”
This comeback show included appearances from Paloma Elsesser and Ashley Graham, two “plus-size” models who have been at the forefront of representing greater body diversity in the industry. Transgender model Valentina Sampaio also modelled a shiny, skimpy black set and bow-like wings. The show was styled by former Vogue Paris editor Emmanuelle Alt. 
For Victoria’s Secret, though, the mark of its comeback show’s success may not be whether the production garnered universal adoration – its management are hopefully sanguine enough by now to understand that a lingerie show in 2024 is never going to please everyone. They’ll be focussed on the numbers and whether it shifted actual lingerie.
“Every single runway look featured shoppable product as the foundation, with consumers able to ‘get the look’ like never before,” read a statement from the brand, adding that all the pieces could be bought via Victoria’s Secret and also on Amazon’s fashion store. If enough viewers were sufficiently entranced by Kate and co.’s push-up bras and silky sets (a cami and shorts similar to those worn by Gigi Hadid is yours for £59) to purchase, then it will be considered job done. 
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