Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show ‘all about aspiration’

In the face of an advertising trend to use ordinary women in everyday situations, supermodels Heidi Klum and Tyra Banks will sashay down the runway on network television tonight dressed in lingerie and angel wings, while pop stars Seal and Ricky Martin play in the background.

After a one- year hiatus, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is back.

“ The show just drives people into the stores,” says Anthony Hebron, spokesman for Limited Brands Inc., which owns Victoria’s Secret. The show, which was taped in November in New York, will air on CBS tonight and cost nearly $ 10 million ( U. S.) to produce.

Despite making nearly 350 million media impressions in 2003, the marketing extravaganza took a break last year. Hebron attributes the gap partly to Janet Jackson’s breast-baring incident at the Super Bowl that cost the CBS $ 550,000 in fines, but mainly to make the show “ better and more integrated.” The main difference is 90 per cent of the fashions shown will be available in stores, while in the past half of the clothes were made exclusively for the show. But the constant of the past nine years remains the super- tall, supersupermodels — and Hebron says that’s because the show is “ geared towards women. It’s all about aspiration,” says Hebron. “ You can look and feel like a supermodel.” The show doesn’t objectify women, he says. It sends anoth-

barrel), they will live with it.” The Bank of Canada voiced some concerns about the rising currency a few months ago, but has since downplayed the impact on the economy.

Indeed, the unemployment rate for November hit a 31- year low of 6.4 per cent, helped along by the fact the economy added a quarter of a million full-time jobs in 12 months. As well, export volumes, adjusted for price changes, are up 2.3 per cent for the first nine months of the year. Meanwhile, Canadians took advantage of the stronger exchange rate by driving up import volumes by 9.3 per cent.

Exports are holding up surprisingly well, said Todd Evans, director of forecasting at Export Development Canada.

“ Even in manufacturing they are down a bit but, given the 30 per cent appreciation in the Canadian dollar, they are not doing too badly.” Though some forecasters expect the loonie to approach 90 cents in the months ahead, Evans foresees the currency falling back to the 82- to 84- cent range. An anticipated weakening of energy prices ought to prevent the dollar from hitting the 90cent mark, Evans said.

That said, you could still see speculators take the currency higher, he conceded.

“It is the foreign exchange market. But if we do see 90 cents, I think that will be a very short- lived phenomenon.” The loonie seems to be in the midst of a recurring phenomenon.

For three years running, the currency has largely taken the summer off but sprung back to life just in time to help Canadians afford winter getaways stateside. The dollar fell below 79 cents ( U. S.) in mid May, but is now up nearly a dime. An even stronger loonie means less scary credit card bills for U. S.- bound travellers, but Canadian tourists may be starting to take the currency for granted.

“ It certainly hasn’t caused people to change their travel plans,” said John Stafford, president of Stafford Travel, in Toronto. “ I haven’t seen anything.”

Yes, travel to the United States is up compared to three or four years ago when the loonie was worth about 64 cents ( U. S.), but the dollar is no longer a key in people’s decisions, Stafford said.

“ You throw in the hurricane damage that just happened and, even if the dollar went to par, I’m not sure it would induce people to go to the States.”