Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show 2024: VS Angels to Return to the Runway

We’re unsure who requested for this, however we’re (very) cautiously optimistic.

It appears just like the Angels are again in motion — Victoria’s Secret Angels, that’s. On Could 15, after a five-year hiatus, lingerie model Victoria’s Secret introduced the return of their annual Victoria’s Secret Vogue Present 2024 this fall.

The retailer shared a video on Instagram of a mannequin texting the information in a “VS Angels” group chat. “We’ve learn the feedback and heard you. The Victoria’s Secret Vogue Present is ✨ BACK ✨ and can mirror who we’re as we speak, plus every part you recognize and love — the glamour, runway, wings, musical leisure, and extra!,” the put up learn. “Keep tuned…it solely will get extra iconic from right here.”

To date, the power within the remark part has been pretty optimistic, with social media customers sharing their pleasure with replies like “This brings me a lot pleasure you haven’t any thought.” Others had been barely extra cautious, with one person begging the model to not “mess up again.”

As soon as the go-to underwear model of teens-with-allowance and younger girls in all places, VS fell from grace after a number of controversies, government scandals and only a basic feeling of public malaise with the entire “tremendous skinny mannequin” factor.

Now, after a number of years of semi-quiet popularity rehab, Victoria’s Secret appears to be able to make an even bigger comeback then ever. However what have they been as much as up to now few years? And can this comeback *truly* be completely different? Every little thing it is advisable to know, under.

To start with, what truly occurred to Victoria’s Secret?

Initially launched in 1977 as the shop “the place males may really feel comfy looking for lingerie,” per The New York Times,  regardless of stocking clothes for girls, the model constructed its legacy on catering to the male gaze. This usually meant that in its heyday, VS inundated buyers in-store and on the runway with pictures of skinny, largely white fashions because the physique “supreme” that each one girls must be striving in direction of.

The model made a giant splash yearly with their annual Victoria’s Secret Vogue Present that came about in cool locales, like Shanghai and NCY. The VS Vogue Present featured fashions (referred to as “Angels”) strutting down the runway sporting the model’s signature angel wings and bopping to the dwell tunes of an It singer of the second (previous performers included The Weeknd, Rihanna, Harry Styles, Canadian boy Shawn Mendes, or Kelsea Ballerini). For a lot of fashions, being chosen as a VS Angel was a career-defining, and infrequently career-making, second.

Whereas this formulation labored for many years, within the late-2010s there was a shift. There was more and more widespread recognition of the shortage of physique range and measurement inclusivity inside VS as extra inclusive manufacturers launched, like Canadian model Knix in 2013 and Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty in 2018. This led to extra buyer dissatisfaction and a marked drop in Victoria’s Secret total recognition, and in 2019, the annual vogue present was officially cancelled.

And it just about simply went downhill from there. That very same yr, the model’s longtime chief advertising officer Ed Razek left the corporate after receiving backlash for refusing to rent plus-size or transgender fashions. In 2020, an investigation by The New York Times discovered that the corporate fostered a misogynistic tradition of sexism, sizeism and ageism, promoted by the model’s former proprietor, Leslie Wexner (Wexner was additionally discovered to have had shut ties with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, so…not a great look). In the identical yr, L Manufacturers, the corporate that owned Victoria’s Secret, sold 55 per cent of the enterprise to private-equity agency Sycamore Manufacturers.

Does Victoria’s Secret nonetheless have IRL shops?

When you’re questioning whether or not or not VS has brick-and-mortar places in any case that controversy, you wouldn’t be alone. The model quietly shuttered some of its Canadian stores in 2020. As of February 2020, VS had closed round 55 shops throughout North America. However as Rob Walker, senior vp and associate with Colliers International, advised Retail Insider that very same yr, that was solely about 5 per cent of its shops. At present there are nonetheless in-person retail shops throughout the nation, you might simply should take a bit of a look to search out one.

So, does this imply Victoria’s Secret’s controversy is behind them?

Sure, and no. For the reason that peak of its scandal period, the corporate has finished *quite a bit* to rebrand as female-focused and empowering, to varying degrees of success. In 2021, VS introduced they had been formally eliminating their Victoria’s Secret Angels and as an alternative swapping within the VS Collective, described as “advocates” for the model. This included celebs like Hailey Bieber, Priyanka Chopra, Paloma Elsesser and tennis star Naomi Osaka.

In a November 2021 interview with WWD, Osaka shared her perception on the adjustments inside the model and her understanding of the imaginative and prescient for the so-called collective, telling the outlet: “I bear in mind going into [Victoria’s Secret] shops after I was a child and questioning why not one of the girls on the wall appeared like me. Now, as a collective, we are able to encourage the following era from all completely different backgrounds, cultures and sizes. That represents such progress to me.”

Is the Victoria’s Secret Vogue Present 2024 going to be completely different than earlier than?

The hope is that, sure, will probably be. As a result of what was working for VS within the Nineteen Nineties and early aughts undoubtedly gained’t work now. Whereas the model is tight-lipped up to now on what precisely this new model of their runway present appear to be, there have been clues concerning the course they may take. In 2023, the model returned to a micro model of its OG runway present with the Victoria’s Secret World Tour. Airing on Prime and taking a cue from different manufacturers like Savage x Fenty, the documentary focused on the VS20, a a gaggle of worldwide creatives who designed appears for VS’s runway fashions.

“This movie is the last word expression of the Victoria’s Secret model transformation,” Raúl Martinez, government vp and head artistic director of Victoria’s Secret, advised WWD on the time. “…We’re so honoured to supply our platform and have it explored by the lens and artistry of worldwide creatives who have a good time the individuality of girls’s tales and views.”

We’re crossing our fingers that the Victoria’s Secret Vogue Present 2024 present follows go well with by showcasing completely different sizes and views. We’re optimistically dusting off our wings.