Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic.
The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is back this fall after a four-year hiatus following controversial comments about who should be included in the fashion show. The last show was in 2018.
During a promo interview with Vogue for the 2018 show, Ed Razek, the former chief marketing officer for Victoria’s Secret’s then-parent company L Brands, made a strong statement that Victoria’s Secret is about fantasy and that, therefore, plus-size and transgender models don’t have a place on the VS runway.
“If you’re asking if we’ve considered putting a transgender model in the show or looked at putting a plus-size model in the show, we have,” he said. “We invented the plus-size model show in what was our sister division, Lane Bryant. Lane Bryant still sells plus-size lingerie, but it sells a specific range just like every specialty retailer in the world sells a range of clothing. As do we. We market to who we sell to, and we don’t market to the whole world.”
Following this, Victoria’s Secret suffered poor viewership and couldn’t quite recover from the controversy, especially as brands like Savage x Fenty were booking high-profile body-diverse models for their shows at the same time.
But now, four years later, the show is back, and allegedy booking some of the biggest names in the industry, including Gigi Hadid, Ashley Graham, Iman Hammam, Adriana Lima, Barbara Palvin, and more. This time around, the brand promises to have “listened” to the feedback. It’s interesting that it arrives now when trans models are on the frontier of emerging faces on runways, so it’s not like it would be revolutionary.
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The show will be headlined by Cher, with accompanying performances by Tyla and Lisa. It can be livestreamed tonight during the show on Prime Video, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
