By Branca Lessa de Sa
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus.
I remember when I first heard of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. I was 13, and the only underwear I owned was from the kids' section of Marks and Spencer’s [the UK equivalent of Target]. At school, two of my friends started talking about this show as if it were a World Cup final—an international cultural phenomenon, totally un-missable. I was confused; at this point the Victoria’s Secret stores didn’t exist in the UK and, as I said, sexy lingerie was not yet a part of my tomboyish teenage girl world. Nonetheless, I agreed to go watch the catwalk at my friends’ house when it aired.
That was the first and last time I watched the show. Now, I wish I could say that I was boycotting Victoria’s Secret for political or moral reasons, an ideological aversion to their lack of diversity, dubitable ethics or advocacy of unrealistic body sizes.
While all these things do bother me, the truth is that I just don’t find it entertaining. The problem with the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is that it attempts to be everything, and ends up being nothing.
It’s not really a fashion show, because let’s be honest, the main focus isn’t fashion, and the primary commodity isn’t the lingerie but the models themselves.
It’s not really a concert, because the performers are overshadowed by models in ornate underwear and oversized jewel-encrusted wings (???), and are left with little to no artistic freedom.
It’s not really reality television because the protagonists—the so-called Angels—can do little more than blow kisses at the audience and talk about how excited they are to walk on that catwalk and blow kisses at the audience.
So what is the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, and why is it still such a popular cultural phenomenon?
In essence, the Fashion Show is one big publicity stunt, a multi-million dollar commercial trying to disguise itself as something else.
Yes, we live in a society where virtually everything is a commercial enterprise—from football, to art, to education. And yes, often, this drive for profit is an incentive for creativity and innovation. The problem is that the Victoria’s Secret show—the pinnacle of brand advertisement—tries so hard to pretend it’s something more than it is, something with truly noble purposes, that it successfully tricks people and can have severely harmful consequences.
The Victoria’s Secret models are not just any ordinary models—they are celebrities with whom we are familiarized and made to revere through a series of publicity feats. To be a Victoria’s Secret angel is not merely to be tall, slim and pretty—it is to be somehow exemplary, one of the “chosen ones.” According to the behind-the-scenes interviews, all young girls dream of one day being an ‘Angel’ and parading down the runaway in an add-two-cup-sizes push-up bra and stiletto heels.
But maybe the beauty of the show lies in the fact it embraces female sexuality, some argue. It provides a space where young girls and women are encouraged to be sexy without being judged.
…really?
Yes , the women are stunning, and the lacy bras and thongs and lingerie sets they parade are incredibly sexy.
But these women are not sexual agents in any way, shape or form. The most agency these models do get is the opportunity to blow a kiss to the audience at the head of the catwalk.
And the wings? They serve as a reminder to us all that these girls are both stunning and virtuous. They are sexy without sexual agency, naughty without any actual naughtiness. They are the embodiments of ideal femininity in a culture where women are required to be desirable without desiring, beautiful and submissive.
This lack of agency makes sense because the Angels’ bodies are temporarily not their own—they are the brand’s. The Victoria’s Secret cast’s unattainable, ethereal bodies are the company’s most expensive commodity.
And it all works wonderfully. The target audience buys it, year after year. Teenage girls worldwide ogle Adriana Lima and Lily Aldridge’s skinny limbs and toned stomachs with envy, wanting these features for themselves.
Indeed, this is in accordance with the original premise of the company—a company started by a man for men. Roy Raymond, the founder of Victoria’s Secret, wanted other husbands to feel comfortable when buying lingerie for their wives. And while the brand has long abandoned this premise, their endorsement of a patriarchal notion of women and femininity continues.
So there it is: the reason I don’t watch the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is because I don’t find anything that reduces women to commodities entertaining.