Victoria’s Secret will be resurrecting its beloved annual fashion show after a four-year freeze, during which the company suffered a series of woke fails.
Victoria’s Secret CFO Tim Johnson confirmed the fashion show’s return in a 2022 earnings call last Friday.
“We’re going to continue to lean into the marketing spend to invest in the business, both at top-of-funnel and also to support the new version of our fashion show, which is to come later this year,” Johnson said.
The fashion show has become a lightning rod for woke controversy in recent years, being that it features lingerie-clad models often walking the runway with opulent accessories like angel wings.
walks the runway during the 2018 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show at Pier 94 on November 8, 2018 in New York City. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Victoria’s Secret)
Victoria’s Secret also confirmed the show will return in a statement to Fox News on Saturday.
“At VS&Co, we are always innovating and ideating in all spheres of the business to continue to put our customer at the center of all we do and reinforce our commitment to championing women’s voices and their unique perspectives,” the statement said.
“As we’ve previously shared, our new brand projection and mission will continue to be our guiding principle. This will lead us into new spaces like reclaiming one of our best marketing and entertainment properties to date and turning it on its head to reflect who we are today. We’re excited to share more later this year,” it added.
walks the runway during the 2016 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show on November 30, 2016 in Paris, France. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Victoria’s Secret)
The fashion show’s return comes after the company made several woke reforms, from its shelving of the “Angels” fashion shows to its selection of transgender model Valentina Sampaio as a brand ambassador. As Breitbart News reported in 2021:
Victoria’s Secret is remodeling its stores across the globe and throwing out its iconic “Angels” imagery, hot pink color scheme, and sexy decor as part of its larger rebranding effort — one that’s been criticized as woke and “performative” by former models and included naming women’s soccer player Megan Rapinoe and transgender model Valentina Sampaio brand ambassadors.
After canceling its annual fashion show in November 2019, Victoria’s Secret is now erasing the brand’s longtime Angels aesthetic that helped turn supermodels like Heidi Klum, Tyra Banks, Ariana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio, Karlie Kloss, and Candice Swanepoel into household names.
Last May, Victoria’s Secret announced that it would permanently close around 250 stores in the U.S. and Canada in 2020. “It’s parent company L Brands said overall sales for the three months ended May 2 fell 37 percent compared with a year ago. Gross profit fell 59 percent. The company lost $275.2 million in the quarter, compared with net income of $40.3 a year ago. Profits per share were down 807 percent for a loss of 99 cents per share,” Breitbart News reported.
At the height of the rebranding, former Victoria’s Secret model Bridget Malcolm slammed the changes as a “joke.”
“Your performative allyship is a joke,” Malcolm said in a TikTok video.
However, former Victoria’s Secret angel Heidi Klum agreed with the rebranding and said “it’s about time.”
“As a model, you go there, you are happy to have a job. When you are not the company, you do what you are told. But finally, looking at this now, I’m like, about time,” Klum told the Sunday Project in 2021.