VICTORIA’S SECRET SHAME
The Victoria’s Secret show has never exactly been a paragon of empowered womanhood, given its premise of honed and preened models prancing down a catwalk in skimpy, jewelled lingerie for the pleasure of male viewers or to act as role models for the women watching.
But this year’s Shanghai-set show — airing Tuesday on Global and CBS — comes in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. In recent weeks, fashion, film and politics have been rocked by allegations of sexual abuse and harassment. The #MeToo movement of women sharing their experiences has created a shift in mood that meant all the usual arguments the Victoria’s Secret team trots out — namely, that it really is empowering to the women involved — look rather flimsy.
For the show’s producers, there was never any question that the show wouldn’t continue in its typical provocative style. It’s true that there have been no abuse allegations linked to Victoria’s Secret or anyone associated with it. Yet the culture and messaging of its blingtastic blockbusters still sits uneasily with late 2017 sensibilities.
The shows have only increased in scale, budget and volumes of glitter since they began in 1995. The Victoria’s Secret argument for this is that they are portraying women as confident and in control. Maybe, but they’re mainly confident about their conventionally sexy bodies (there are no plus-size models cast in the show) and what exactly are they in control of ? Their much-vaunted VS exercise and “clean-eating” regimens? Of a career that’s entirely balanced precariously on the not always predictable fluctuations of their looks and the casting directors at Victoria’s Secret?
It is not exactly a nuanced, complex, rich message about women. Rather, it’s as mono-focused as a 1950s beauty pageant. This year’s show was intended as a celebration of Victoria’s Secret’s entrance to the Chinese market, staged last Monday in Shanghai’s Mercedes-Benz Arena in front of an audience of 3,000.
“This is the Super Bowl of modelling — we wait for this day all year long,” says Sara Sampaio, a Portuguese model. “It’s something I had always dreamt of doing.”
The Victoria’s Secret team is adept at drafting highly paid, gorgeous models who say how marvellous they feel prancing about in a pair of angel wings. Their other favourite argument is that the shows online are mainly watched by women. So that makes it all right then.
But does it? How many of those females are teenagers and preteens, nurturing all kinds of insecurities about their bodies, stoking their fragile sense of self-worth with thoughts that if only they could learn to sashay in a thong and crystal sandals, they too could have a supermodel career?
The two-dimensional limitations of the female ambitions — make me thin, busty and pretty, and nifty with a pair of angel wings — are depressingly narrow and infantilizing.
And yet the audience for this stuff is vast. Last year’s broadcast attracted 6.7 million viewers on CBS alone.
Women are the main audience for the performance, which will reach a billion people watching across TV channels, social media and online streams in 185 countries this year. But the narrative of the models being on the Victoria’s Secret journey — from casting to show day — has been building for a while.
Since the summer, in fact, when 400 models were auditioned. All those chosen will have met exacting standards, least of all being the minimum age of 18. “We have a responsibility and a duty of care to the girls,” says Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou, creative director. “When you’re over 18, you’re more mentally ready to understand why you may not have got the part, and what you need to do to move forward.”
But those standards also apply to the bodies of the women chosen, and the intense culture of exercise and nutrition that can stray from well-intentioned athletic ideals to objectifying diktats. Should one really strive to #TrainLikeAnAngel, and who really wants to see a woman reduced to a set of sparkly wings and a bra on a global stage?
Victoria’s Secret has the opportunity to seize the possibilities of a post-Weinstein age. There can be lingerie displays and shows that are truly empowering and inspirational — just look at Calvin Klein’s softly shot images of then 73-year-old Lauren Hutton in a comfy bra and white shirt earlier this year.
In this new climate, the potential is there to do something fresh and forward-thinking.
How frustrating that Shanghai stuck so resolutely to the same old script.