The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is an annual show sponsored by and featuring Victoria's Secret, a brand of lingerie and sleepwear. Victoria's Secret uses the show to promote and market its goods in high-profile settings. The show features some of the world's leading fashion models such as current Victoria's Secret Angels Adriana Lima, Behati Prinsloo, Candice Swanepoel, Lily Aldridge, Elsa Hosk, Jasmine Tookes, Josephine Skriver, Lais Ribeiro, Martha Hunt, Romee Strijd, Sara Sampaio, Stella Maxwell and Taylor Marie Hill.
American network television broadcasts the show during prime time. The first few shows in the 1990s were held in the days preceding Valentine's Day to promote the brand for this holiday. They were not aired on national television. In 1999 and 2000 the show was webcast. Beginning in 2001, the shows were moved ahead of the Christmas holiday season. Also in 2001, the show made its network television broadcast debut on ABC, though in all subsequent years, it has been broadcast on CBS. The show has been held at a variety of locations in different cities including Miami, Los Angeles, Cannes, Paris, London and Shanghai. The first four shows were held at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, but since it has become a televised event it has most often been held at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City.
The show is a lavish event with elaborate costumed lingerie, varying music by leading entertainers, and set design according to the different themes running within the show. The show attracts hundreds of celebrities and entertainers, with special performers and acts every year. Each year, twenty to forty of the world's top fashion models are selected to perform in the fashion show. In a typical year, this includes about a half dozen women under contract to the company, known as Victoria's Secret Angels, who help publicize the event.
Video Victoria's Secret Fashion Show
Victoria's Secret Wings
The large angel wings worn by the models, as well as other wings of various forms and sizes such as butterfly, peacock, or devil wings, have become emblematic of the Victoria's Secret brand. In theory, wings are any ornamental back piece worn by a model on the runway, or any sort of structural appendage resembling traditional wings.
- Adriana Lima's 70-square-feet orange wings in 2002 are the largest by area.
- Heidi Klum wore the tallest Victoria's Secret wings in 2003. They were 12 feet tall.
- Karolina Kurkova wore 12-foot wings in 2007, but these were slightly shorter than Klum's wings four years prior.
- In 2011, Alessandra Ambrosio wore 30-pound Swarovski encrusted wings that are the heaviest in the history of the brand.
- Karlie Kloss' gold-plated wings in 2014 are the most expensive in the history of the brand.
- In 2016, Joan Smalls wore wings that extended 10 feet behind her, making them the longest wings thus far.
- 2016 saw Lady Gaga become the first musical performer to sport wings on the runway.
- In 2017, Elsa Hosk wore a 1-million-dollar Swarovski wing set.
- The "Fireworks" segment in 2015 is the only real segment thus far in which every outfit featured a pair of wings.
- So far, Adriana Lima has worn more wings than any other model, having worn 22 pairs. Alessandra Ambrosio follows next with 18 pairs.
Each year, around 5 models are chosen to wear particularly huge wings in the fashion show. Victoria's Secret tends to give these to models who are strong enough to carry outsized wings, or to models who have amassed a significant amount of popularity that year, either inside or outside the brand. Wearing big wings is seen as an honor for models, and Adriana Lima has stated in the past that models sometimes fight for the largest wings in the show.
Maps Victoria's Secret Fashion Show
History
1995-2005
The first fashion show extravaganza, introduced by Stephanie Seymour, was held at the Plaza Hotel in New York City in August 1995. The show also featured Beverly Peele and Frederique van der Wal. This first fashion show occurred two months before The Limited, parent company of Victoria's Secret owner Intimate Brands, sold an initial public offering of a 16 percent stake in the company and almost had Seymour make an appearance at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for the opening bell. She actually did ring the closing bell at the NYSE as part of the publicity campaign. The subsequent three annual shows were also held at the Plaza.
In 1999, during Super Bowl XXXIII, Victoria's Secret announced a 72-hour countdown to the Internet webcast of the Victoria's Secret fashion show, which resulted in over 2 million internet viewers of the show. Parent company Intimate Brands bought a $1.5 million ($2.2 million today) 30-second television advertisement during the Super Bowl broadcast and spent an additional $4 million ($5.9 million) for subsequent international newspaper advertisements to publicize the event. The show, which was aired by Broadcast.com, featured Tyra Banks, Laetitia Casta, Heidi Klum, Karen Mulder, Daniela Pestova, Inés Rivero, and Seymour. In 1999 and 2000, the show was broadcast live on the internet, but the 2000 show was moved for a year from the usual February event at the Plaza to a May event in concert with the Cannes Film Festival in France to raise money for the Cinema Against AIDS charity; it raised $3.5 million.
In 2001, the show, which was hosted by Rupert Everett, returned to the New York City but at Bryant Park instead of the Plaza. That year, the show made its broadcast debut on ABC, drawing millions of viewers as well as some middle-brow controversy; the Federal Communications Commission received many complaints about the broadcast every year. The show has continued to be broadcast on network television every year since.
From 2002 through 2005, it was held at the Lexington Avenue Armory in New York City. The 2004 show was canceled due to a widespread crackdown on perceived indecency in broadcasting stemming from the Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy, in which Jackson encountered a breast-revealing "wardrobe malfunction". Before the 2005 show, Banks announced her retirement from modeling and embarkation on a television career with The Tyra Banks Show, making the 2005 show a farewell to her decade of fashion shows for the company.
In 2004, instead of the annual fashion show, the Angels (Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Gisele Bündchen, Adriana Lima, and Alessandra Ambrosio) did an Angels Across America Tour, a grassroots campaign for the brand visiting four major cities: New York City, Miami, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles.
2006-2012
The 2006 and 2007 shows were held at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. On November 13, 2007, the Victoria's Secret Angels were honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame right outside the Kodak Theatre. The 2007 Angels honored in this celebration to mark Victoria's Secret's 25th anniversary on Hollywood Boulevard were Heidi Klum, Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio, Karolina Kurkova, Selita Ebanks, Izabel Goulart, Marisa Miller, and Miranda Kerr. The other models, who also appeared in that year's fashion show, were in attendance that day. The 2008 show coincided with the grand re-opening of the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel.
In 2006, Victoria's Secret sub-brand PINK made its debut on the runway. Justin Timberlake opened the show with his popular song "Sexy Back". This year fashion show was the final walk of Gisele Bündchen.
The 2007 show featured a performance by the Spice Girls and gained prominence as the first American TV debut of the band after their comeback. Kanye West was also scheduled to perform at the event, but cancelled his appearance due to his mother's death. will.i.am was called to perform in his place.
The 2008 show was held at Fountainebleu Miami Beach, Florida. Usher was appeared on the show as well as opened it. Unlike the other shows, the runway was designed parallel with the audience seats.
In 2009, the fashion show took place in New York City at the Lexington Avenue Armory, where it was last held in 2005. The 2009 show was notable for featuring the results of a competition, called the Victoria's Secret Model Search, to find a new Victoria's Secret "runway Angel." The winner was announced as Kylie Bisutti.
The 2010 Victoria's Secret Fashion show aired on November 30, 2010 on CBS, and featured performances by Katy Perry and Akon. A promotional ad featured a lipdub for Katy Perry's "Firework". As of 2010, 152 models have walked the show.
In 2011, Kanye West started his song "Stronger" with a tribute to his mother who had died before his scheduled performance four years before, saying: "In 2007, I was supposed to perform this song on this show ...and I lost my superhero. Now she's my super-angel."
In 2012, an outfit worn by model Karlie Kloss, which was reminiscent of Native American attire, sparked controversy due to its alleged stereotypical depiction of Native Americans. Victoria's Secret released a statement of apology shortly after, saying that they will remove it from future advertisements and the broadcast. Kloss apologized on her Twitter account for the outfit and expressed her support for the outfit's removal in the broadcast.
2013-present
In 2013, the Victoria's Secret Fashion show featured performances by Taylor Swift, A Great Big World, Neon Jungle and Fall Out Boy. Taylor Swift performed "I Knew You Were Trouble", A Great Big World performed "Say Something", UK's Neon Jungle made their US television debut with "Trouble", and Fall Out Boy performed with Taylor Swift in "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark" and later performed "The Phoenix".
In 2014, the Victoria's Secret Fashion show featured performances by Taylor Swift; Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, and Hozier. Taylor Swift performed "Blank Space" and "Style". Ed Sheeran performed "Thinking Out Loud". Ariana Grande performed "Love Me Harder", "Bang Bang", "Break Free", and "Problem". Hozier performed "Take Me to Church". During the show, Ariana Grande was performing and was hit by accident by Elsa Hosk's wings.
In 2015, the show featured performances by The Weeknd, Selena Gomez, and Ellie Goulding. The Weeknd performed "In the Night" and "Can't Feel My Face" for the show, while Gomez performed a medley of "Hands to Myself" and "Me & My Girls" for the PINK segment. Goulding was contracted as a replacement for Rihanna, who had cancelled her appearance just one week before the show in order to focus on recording her album Anti. Goulding performed "Army" and "Love Me Like You Do" for the show.
In 2016, the Victoria's Secret Fashion show featured performances by The Weeknd (performed "Starboy"), Lady Gaga (performed "Million Reasons", plus a medley of "A-Yo" and "John Wayne"), and Bruno Mars (performed "Chunky" for the Pink brand and "24k Magic" for the VS brand). The executive producer of Victoria's Secret, Ed Razek, chose Grand Palais in Paris, France as the show's location. A major challenge faced with the show was the size of the building and how the show could be showcased on a small TV, as well as the natural lighting in the building, which would get in the way of the tradition of the show being held at night.
The 2017 show was held in Shanghai, China and was the first Victoria's Secret Fashion Show to be held in Asia. The show featured the first-ever segment in collaboration with another brand, French fashion house Balmain. The theme and designs were co-steered by Victoria's Secret and Balmain creative director Olivier Rousteing. Performers included Harry Styles (performed Kiwi and Only Angel), Miguel (performed Pineapple Skies and Told You So), Jane Zhang (performed a medley of Work For It, 808, and Dust My Shoulders Off), and Leslie Odom Jr. (performed Winter Song). A performance by Katy Perry was cancelled due to her visa to travel to China being revoked. A week before the show was due to be filmed, model Gigi Hadid confirmed that she was also denied to attend the show. Russian, Ukrainian, and Nigerian models, including Kate Grigorieva, Irina Sharipova, Julia Belyakova, Dasha Khlystun, and Mayowa Nicholas, all of which were due to feature in the show, were also reportedly denied visas for entry to China, and therefore were not featured in the show.
Critical review
The early webcasts were criticized for poor connection, and users that could connect were subjected to low video quality. One critic from The New York Times described the initial 20th-century webcast experience as having felt like he was "watching a striptease through a keyhole".
Some critics have described the 21st-century televised editions of the show as pornographic, while others have described it as both "outright commercialism" and an infomercial. The Federal Communications Commission has received complaints regarding the broadcast, but no fines have been imposed, with the FCC, following the 2001 airing, citing the First Amendment and stating that "sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium" were not broadcast. In the initial 2001 airing ABC blurred the screen on particularly sheer lingerie. This enabled the show to pass muster with its internal Broadcast Standards and Practices department and to achieve the TV-14 rating. In 2002, the National Organization for Women protested the show calling it a "soft-core porn infomercial." They were joined in protest by the Parents Television Council and other watchdog organizations. CBS has given past shows TV-14 ratings, which is a warning that the show may contain material unsuitable for children age 14 and under. Nonetheless some affiliates have chosen not to air the show in past years including Fisher Broadcasting affiliates in Idaho. In 2009, the American Decency Association organized email letters of protests to sponsors of the show including AT&T, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Netflix, Nikon, and Reebok. CBS has described the event to as "the Super Bowl of fashion".
Summary table
Fantasy Bra
Typically, one model is chosen among the Angels to wear a bejeweled bra dubbed the "Fantasy Bra". It was first advertised in the Victoria's Secret catalog, but since 2001 has been worn in the fashion shows. Prior to each fashion show, Victoria's Secret contracts a renowned jewelry designer to craft the bra to be used as a focal point for promoting the fashion show and as a centerpiece within it. The company offers the Fantasy Bra for sale as "the ultimate holiday"gift. However, only the centerpiece from the 2004 Heavenly "70" Fantasy Bra and the 2012 Floral Fantasy Bra and Gift Set have found a buyer. If not bought, the bras are usually dismantled after a year.
Heidi Klum and Adriana Lima have worn the Fantasy Bra in three different years. Gisele Bündchen, Tyra Banks, Karolina Kurkova, and Alessandra Ambrosio have each worn two Fantasy Bras. Tyra Banks also wore the 1995 Million Dollar Miracle Bra during the 1999 fashion show. As of 2018, the fantasy bra has been worn by 8 times by a Brazilian model, 5 times by an American model, 4 times by a German model, and 3 times by a Czech model.
The $15 million price tag for the 2000 bra worn by Gisele Bündchen earned a place in the Guinness World Records as the most expensive item of lingerie ever created. The $3 million 2009 Harlequin Fantasy Bra and the $2 million 2010 Bombshell Fantasy Bra were designed by Damiani. Listed below are the prices per set (including accessories for the 2007 and 2013 editions, the 2013 bra alone is worth $8,000,000). The 2012 Floral Fantasy Bra was accompanied by a $500,000 perfume bottle.
In 2014, for the first time, two fantasy bras were created. They were worn by Alessandra Ambrosio and Adriana Lima and were valued at $2,000,000 each.
Swarovski Outfits
Similar to the Fantasy Bra, one model is chosen to wear the "Swarovski Outfit" every year. The first Swarovski Outfit that was shown on the runway was given to Alessandra Ambrosio, but Victoria's Secret has worked with Swarovski for 9 years prior to the outfit worn on the runway in 2011.
Alessandra Ambrosio wore the first official Swarovski outfit. Her Swarovski outfit included a 60-pound wing which included 105,000 Swarovski crystals. The base of her wing is made out of 23-carat gold. Cameron Russell was given the "10th Anniversary" Swarovski outfit celebrating Victoria's Secret's 10th year working with Swarovski.
The 2013 Swarovski Outfit was a 3D printed piece given to Lindsay Ellingson, which includes mini-micro Swarovski crystals. In 2017, Elsa Hosk was chosen to wear the 15th Anniversary Swarovski Outfit and Wing, which comes to a total value of $1,000,000.
Show Opening & Closing Models
See also
- List of Victoria's Secret models
- Women's beachwear fashion
References
External links
- Victoria's Secret website
- Photos from the 2013 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show
Source of article : Wikipedia
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