Welcome back to Second Thought, a tour of the zeitgeist—online, in real life, and in that space in between that seems to be getting weirder and wider.
The Angel’s in the Details
If nobody quite knows what the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is—A concert? An exhibition? A high-octane lingerie advertisement?—the same is true of the brand’s iconic Angels. Are they models? Soft prostitutes? Do they problematically glamorize unattainable proportions—or even eugenics? Or are they beauty personified? Like Playboy Bunnies or Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, they are insanely hot and eager to show off their bodies for pay and acclaim—and therefore become objects of confusion and too many mixed feelings.
In 2019, Victoria’s Secret put its annual show on hiatus owing to, well, a lot: The company had Jeffrey Epstein ties through its then CEO Leslie Wexner, there were the toxic workplace allegations, and then there was the thing right there on the surface: Victoria’s Secret Angels are hardly a body-positive, or inclusive, bunch—their vibe was very much out of style. Victoria’s Secret had failed to adjust to the intersectional feminist era.
And so: It tried to.
