When the Show Worked
The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show happened in Paris in 2016 and it was the exact thing it was always going to be—expensive, beautiful, engineered for desire. Gigi and Kendall and Sara and all the others in lingerie with wings on their backs while Lady Gaga or whoever performed in the background. The whole machinery of it, millions spent to create a fantasy that you could watch.
The thing about the VS show was that it was pornography that got legitimized by high production values and the right celebrity names attached. Fashion as an excuse for what everyone actually came for. That’s not criticism—it worked. It was effective. You watched because these were attractive people in revealing clothing, and instead of admitting that, everyone got to talk about the artistry and the fashion and the craftsmanship.
By 2016 the formula was already feeling tired, though I don’t think anyone admitted it yet. Instagram had started to destroy the whole model of exclusivity that the show depended on. You could see these models any time, any angle, any context. The show needed secrecy and inaccessibility to work, and that was being eroded daily.
The backstage photos that leaked or got shared afterward were sometimes the best part because they caught the models not performing—just being people in hallways in expensive lingerie, checking their phones, existing without the spectacle. That’s more honest somehow.