Models walk the runway during the 2025 Victoria's Secret fashion show. Photo: Reuters
The reinvention of the rebrand of the rebrand of Victoria’s Secret took place recently in Brooklyn, New York. This time it may work.
There were the usual Angels (Adriana Lima, Candice Swanepoel, both the Hadids) and an attempt to tap into the current vogue for athletes with WNBA star Angel Reese and Olympian Sunisa Lee.
There was musical talent like Madison Beer, Karol G and Missy Elliott. There were wings, but no actual feathers.
And there was a real designer behind it all: Adam Selman, formerly of Savage x Fenty and his own brand and the man who put Rihanna in her nude dress, now the executive creative director of Victoria's Secret.
Most of all, however, there was a good-natured self-awareness about the whole exercise.
Whether Victoria’s Secret qualifies as fashion is debatable, though this time there were more clothes, or clothes-adjacent garments, on the runway than usual.
It’s certainly not female empowerment (thank God. That was always an impossible sell).
It’s part of a tradition that stretches back through Florenz Ziegfeld, the Rockettes and the Las Vegas of the mind, and it is currently back in the mainstream thanks to Taylor Swift.
Read more: Wings, music, star power: Victoria’s Secret heats up the runway once again
The Victoria's Secret show is an expression of showgirl culture, the consumer version.
Deplore that fantasy or partake in it, it’s impossible not to recognise it, and to see its continued role in how we got to here.
Selman understands that.
Which is why, rather than tart up his models up in the ridiculous Victoria’s Secret costumes of yore that seemed calculated to cater to the most camp male fantasies, or render the gear so accessible it looked like a Halloween outfit purchased at Walmart, or hit anyone over the head with "How Much VS Has Changed", or even bother going on about the glorification of different body types (that’s now part of the package), he leaned into the sparkle.
Yes, the crystals and gilded faux feathers and chrome.
The tone was set from the first exit – a very pregnant Jasmine Tookes in a pearl-festooned net backed by a cloud of stars – and the first performance: Beer, surrounded by a lot of fan-wielding backup dancers whose choreography recalled an Esther Williams movie on dry land.
There was Lima with wings trailing acres of silver fringe; here was Angelina Kendall with what seemed like a whole rosy trellis springing from her back.
There was Irina Shayk with a spray of pink ferns popping out of the top of her head like a rooster’s crown; here was Awar Odhiang with a crown of silvery shooting stars.
Read more: Body inclusivity fades as fashion runways return to a thinner ideal
There were a lot of billowing robes.
The models, mostly, looked as if they were having fun while strutting around in their undies and high heels for public consumption (the exception was K-pop girl group Twice, who seemed so bored with their set that most of the time they didn’t even pretend to lip sync, leaving their microphones down by their thighs as their songs were piped over the sound system).
Karol G even donned her own wings and took a turn in a red lace Victoria's Secret bodysuit to cap off her performance.
The risk, however, in embracing the showgirl model is that the mood the Victoria's Secret show most captured is the same mood crystallised by the 2024 film The Last Showgirl, the one starring Pamela Anderson and suffused by nostalgia for a time gone by and dreams that had begun to crack at the seams.
Maybe that’s a good bet and people will want to buy into it.
The past can take on a rosy glow, especially in an uncertain present, especially when bathed in ruby light. It’s obviously entertaining to watch and has an audience.
But it’s not exactly a compelling proposition for the future – even just the future of your underwear drawer. – ©2025 The New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
