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The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show Was Cancelled For 2019 And We’re Pretty Much Fine With That
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The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show Was Cancelled For 2019 And We’re Pretty Much Fine With That
Since 1995, fans of the big time lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret have tuned into its lavish annual show wherein models for the brand to display its most elaborate costume lingerie. But now it’s goodbye angels, bedazzled bras and wings and memes.
This year the Victoria’s Secret Fashion brand has announced that it has officially canceled this year’s show.
The internet launched into a frenzy last week when it was announced that this year’s show was canceled.
According to reports, Stuart B. Burgdoerfer, chief financial officer and executive vice president of the brand’s parent company L Brands, announced last Thursday morning during a conference call with analysts that the show had been canceled. According to Variety, the decision to cancel show was out of a desire to appeal to the “evolve the marketing.” In a write up by Variety it is aid that the Burgdoerfer underlined that the show had no ” immediate impact on sales of its bras and underwear.”
“Did we see specific material impact on short-term sales response to the airing of the fashion show, as a general matter the answer to that question is no,” Burgdoerfer said during the conference call. “So if you’re like, ‘Oh my God, Stuart, are you freaked out about the day after the fashion show result and what’s going to happen?’, it did air at different times over the years and we didn’t see a material impact on the next few days’ results.”
Users online were quick to show the divisiveness of the decision with comments on Twitter.
The bombshell announcement that the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show has been canceled has caused internet mayhem. While supporters of the brand refused to accept the brand’s cancellation of the show others argued that the brand’s show has proven to be consistently problematic. In fact, two years ago, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show proved to be plagued by a series of hot messes almost from the start.
First, various models and talent meant to be featured in the show, which took place in Shanghai, failed to secure visas, including model Gigi Hadid. Though her absence was suspected to be over racist behavior. Then media outlets and bloggers had a hard time getting permission from Chinese bureaucrats to film the event at all.
Once the show aired, it was filled with some pretty cringeworthy moments of cultural appropriation, models caught singing the N-word, no models above a size 4 and a TV edit that has Twitter and Chrissy Tiegan epically POed. It felt more like a shit show than fashion show.
On top of this, the brand’s annual show also has been under constant criticism
Stuck in an early era that beckons back to the early 2000s when the show started and brands hadn’t quite yet embraced body positivity, Victoria Secret failed to embraces models of all sizes, ethnicities, and abilities on their runway. The underwear company has been accused of not hiring women of color — especially dark women — for their campaigns. Last year the manufacturer gained criticism after the company’s chief marketing officer Ed Razek of Victoria’s Secret’s parent company made disparaging and anti-trans comments in an interview with Vogue magazine. During the conversation Razek rejected the idea that Victoria Secret would ever have a trans women walk on its runway. “No. No, I don’t think we should. Well, why not? Because the show is a fantasy.”
For the most part users against the brand’s hiring practices applauded their decision to rebrand.
Speaking about the decision a Twitter user replied “hopefully rebranding means a wider range of sizes and a more diverse slew of models,” a sentiment that other users agreed with.
“I agree. Honestly, after watching Rihanna‘s SavageXFenty show and seeing the diversity in skin tones, shapes, ethnicities, and the actual performance level, I wasn’t even planning on watching the Victoria’s Secret show,” added another, referencing Rihanna‘s highly-inclusive lingerie fashion show in September. Another user said, “Good. It’s time for them to rebrand, bc their entire image is early 2000’s and non-inclusive.”
“people are real life upset about transphobic/fatphobic ass victoria’s secret show getting cancelled as if there aren’t better shows happening now and in the future(fenty),” another user wrote.
Avid fans of the brand and its show decried the decision saying it was one made over fear of sensitivity.
“ever since Victoria’s Secret cancelled their fashion show every skinny basic white girl has been poppin out of nowhere to let us know they’re transphobic/fatphobic with no shame lol. Victoria’s Secret hasn’t been cool since yoga pants freshman year of high school. Get over it,” one user asserted.
“Canceling the Victoria Secret fashion show bc it showcases ‘unrealistic beauty standards’ is f—ing ridiculous lmfaaoo those girls work so hard to be on that stage. The level of sensitivity is absurd,” one user wrote.“Because ppl are so sensitive nowadays the Victoria secret fashion show got cancelled ? I’m pissed,” another replied.
Others slammed the amount of attention the cancelation has been receiving.
“the fact the Victoria’s Secret fashion show being cancelled has more media coverage than A FUCKING PURGE HAPPENING IN CALI COLOMBIA shows how South American Countries are put into minorities, please change this ITS DISGUSTING #prayforcolombia” another user replied.
Which is… tbh a pretty good point.
During his announcement on Thursday, Burgdoerfer said that their upcoming marketing plans for VS will not be “similar in magnitude to the fashion show.”
“We recognize and appreciate that the communication of the brand, the offerings, the emotional content of Victoria’s Secret is obviously an important thing,” Burgdoerfer said in his announcement Thursday.“[The show] was a very important part of the brand-building of this business and was an important aspect of the brand and a remarkable marketing achievement… And with that said, we’re figuring out how to advance the positioning of the brand and best communicate that to customers and that’s among the things that [Victoria’s Secret chief executive officer] John [Mehas] is focused on.”
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Victoria’s Secret Is Officially Eating Its Words After Hiring A Trans Model To Represent Its Brand
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Victoria’s Secret Is Officially Eating Its Words After Hiring A Trans Model To Represent Its Brand
Several times in the past, Victoria’s Secret has come under fire for the hiring practices of their models. For instance, the underwear company has been accused of not hiring women of color — especially dark women — for their campaigns. Also, they have made disparaging comments before about hiring plus-sized and transgender models to display their products.
However, with the addition of its newest model, it seems that the brand has had a change of heart– or is, at least, trying to win back ours.
Brazilian model Valentina Sampaio has been confirmed as the first trans model to be hired by the company for any of their lines or campaigns.
Last week, the model posted a photo of herself on her Instagram, causing fans to speculate about the collaboration. In it, Sampaio tagged Victoria’s Secret’s Insta and added the hashtags #vspink, #campaign, and #diversity. She also posted a video of herself days later with the caption “Never stop dreaming genteee” along with the hashtags #staytuned, #vspink and #diversity.
Despite these posts, her partnership with the lingerie brand wasn’t confirmed until Monday.
Sampaio’s agent, Erio Zanon, confirmed with CNN that the model has been hired by Victoria’s Secret for a campaign. The campaign is set to be released in mid-August 2019 and the brand’s popular PINK line is reported to be its target.
Hiring the Brazilian as a new face of their brand is a huge departure from Victoria’s Secret’s very recent exclusionary stance.
Back in 2018, Ed Razek, the chief marketing officer for Victoria’s Secret’s parent company, created controversy with certain comments he made during an interview with VOGUE. When asked about adding plus-sized models and trans models to their yearly Victoria’s Secret special or to their advertisements, Razek rejected the idea.
“It’s like, why doesn’t your show do this?” the marketing officer asked hypothetically. “Shouldn’t you have transsexuals in the show? No. No, I don’t think we should. Well, why not? Because the show is a fantasy. It’s a 42-minute entertainment special.”
Razek later apologized for his comments after the trans and LBGTQ communities pushed back on his offensive words. In his official statement, he clarified: “My remark regarding the inclusion of transgender models in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show came across as insensitive. I apologize. To be clear, we would absolutely cast a transgender model for the show.”
Supporters of the brand’s decision to hire Sampaio were quick to celebrate the partnership for the history maker that it is.
Fellow Brazilian model Lais Ribeiro sent her congratulations to the newest Victoria’s Secret’s model on her incredible news. In a tweet from her personal Twitter account, the Latina posted a screenshot of an article describing the Latina’s new job with the caption, “First transgender to shoot with Vs! This makes me so happy!” We’re ecstatic that Sampaio has the support of other models during this new and challenging role.
Fans on Twitter were also happy to learn of Victoria’s Secret’s historical hire and shared their hope that it would lead to other important diversification.
As this tweet points out, the hire is way past due. Our society is becoming more noticeably diverse and, with the change in dynamics, our marketing and entertainment should also reflect these differences. Just like this Twitter user, we are looking forward to the day that Victoria’s Secret hires plus-sized women, more Black and brown women, and disabled people to rep their runways.
Still, we can’t help but admit that this hire could partially be driven by the poor reaction to their earlier anti-trans sentiment.
Twitter user points out that the lingerie brand has been losing big money for a while now. After a disastrous 2018, Victoria’s Secret announced in April of 2019 that they would be closing over 50 stores by the end of the year. This inclusion of a trans model could be seen as pandering to an untapped demographic in order to get their sales up.
However, we’re reminded that progress is progress no matter how it comes about.
Whether this is a hire with an ulterior motive or not, the fact that Sampaio has been brought on as the first trans model for Victoria’s Secret is huge. Progress should be celebrated no matter how it comes about and we’re certain that Sampaio will make a heavenly addition to the lingerie brand’s team.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmPDFBzZKao
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