BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — In a warehouse flushed in a surreal pink glow, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show made its long-awaited — and somewhat bewildering — return on Tuesday night after a five-year hiatus. “WE ARE BACK” was not just the tagline. It was a mantra, plastered across street posters, golf carts, and hoodies, as if repetition alone could manifest relevance in an era far removed from the brand’s glossy heyday.
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Set in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the return event featured all the spectacle one might expect from a brand once synonymous with bombshell beauty and bombastic pageantry: smoke machines, metallic wings, animatronic costumes, platform stages, and an eerie aesthetic somewhere between haunted house and high fashion. But it also raised a question that lingered beneath the shimmer: Back from where — and for whom?
A Brand Haunted by Its Past
This was Victoria’s Secret’s first fashion show since 2018, after the company — once the crown jewel of lingerie retail — was pulled under by controversy. From declining sales to public scrutiny of its outdated beauty standards, to more serious issues like the exposed ties between former parent company L Brands’ Les Wexner and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the brand was forced to cancel its annual show in 2019.
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Then came a series of attempts to reinvent itself. The most recent was “The Tour” in 2023 — an artsy, progressive event that spotlighted plus-size, trans, and nontraditional models, which critics felt missed the brand’s core identity and charisma. The backlash was swift. Social media lambasted it for being inauthentic and too apologetic. “The Victoria’s Secret Show Could’ve Been an Email,” quipped The Cut.
The 2025 Return: Glamorous, Glossy… and Hollow?
Tuesday’s show seemed like a compromise between nostalgia and reinvention — but it leaned more toward the surreal. Original Angels like Adriana Lima and Doutzen Kroes reappeared in awkward, overly styled ensembles. Lima donned a pink plaid bodysuit that even Gwen Stefani in her Harajuku days might’ve passed on. Their stilettoes seemed designed to torture, not walk.
Meanwhile, the audience was treated to a rotation of otherworldly moments: pop star Lisa rode in on a motorcycle, Ashley Graham rose from beneath the stage in towering platform heels, and Gigi Hadid flapped mechanical pink wings like a trapped Barbie.
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And then there was Cher, the true shining moment, belting “Believe” in glittering cargo pants — a strange but oddly fitting climax to a show suspended between camp and chaos.
The Clothes (Sort of) and the Message (Maybe)
If you came for lingerie, you may have left confused. The show’s outfits — if they can be called that — looked more like Halloween costumes crafted in an art class. They were messy, impractical, and deeply uncomfortable to watch. For a brand trying to reclaim glamour, the execution felt off-key. The styling of Emmanuelle Alt, known for chic restraint, was practically invisible amid the visual noise.
Despite the chaos, the event tried to weave a feminist narrative. A pre-show voiceover declared that this was a night “where women take the reins and the spotlight.” But between balloon-animal wings, pleather-clad dancers, and fog machines, the empowerment felt more performative than powerful.
A Glossy Mirage of Feminism?
Creative director Bramble Trionfo, who has worked with Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty, suggested that this was less of a comeback and more of a “de-brand.”
“These brands spend money to ‘rebrand,’ but they’re changing nothing. All it is, really, is an aesthetic facelift,” she explained.
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Victoria’s Secret, she noted, is trading in “something we’re scared to like — glossy, formulaic, thin, white femininity — but we want it. We grew up with it. We still desire it.”
Fashion writer Magdalene J. Taylor added a key distinction: “The Victoria’s Secret angel has always been about beauty more than sex — an unattainable, almost inhuman perfection.” Sexy, she noted, is messier, realer. What the Angels offered was fantasy, escapism — not lust.
Still the Behemoth in Lingerie Retail
Despite everything, Victoria’s Secret remains a dominant name in lingerie, boasting nearly 1,500 stores worldwide. In comparison, Kim Kardashian’s lauded Skims, though culturally influential and rapidly expanding, operates only a handful of retail locations. Many Skims and Victoria’s Secret items are even made in the same factories.
A new book, “Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon” by journalists Lauren Sherman and Chantal Fernandez, chronicles the company’s rise, fall, and confusing present. Their conclusion? The brand is likely to stumble forward — still flawed, still powerful.
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Are We Still Buying the Fantasy?
If Tuesday’s show revealed anything, it’s that the idea of Victoria’s Secret still holds power — if not precision. In an age where body positivity, gender fluidity, and inclusive marketing dominate the conversation, the brand is attempting to balance nostalgia for a lost era with a hesitant nod toward modernity.
But its authentic truth remains tangled in glossy contradiction: objectification sold as empowerment, perfection paraded as identity, and innocence wrapped in corsets and glitter.
As Tariro Makoni, a creative strategist, put it: “True authenticity sells because it’s willing to exclude. And the excluded can either aspire — or reject it.”
Final Thoughts
In the end, Victoria’s Secret gave us a show — whether you saw it as a resurrection or a haunted echo is up to you. It wasn’t quite sexy, not really subversive, and barely empowering. But it was unforgettable.
Maybe that’s what they wanted all along.
