When the pink carpet is rolled out, stunning models are wearing lacy lingerie and chart-topping singers come together for an evening it can mean only one thing – the Victoria’s Secret fashion show is back in town.
The American underwear brand made its runway debut in 1995, with Tyra Banks taking to the stage wearing the first set of angel wings three years later.
Ed Razek, former chief marketing officer of VS’s parent company, L Brands, once described the catwalk show as a ‘fantasy’, excluding transgender and plus-size models from the ’42-minute entertainment special’.
But his controversial statement got the brand in trouble, and led to them cancelling the show in 2019 – the same year he made the comments and resigned – due to uproar and poor ratings.
So they mixed things up and leaned into promoting diversity by including larger models Paloma Elsesser and Ali Tate-Cutler in their campaigns.
Models walk the Victoria’s Secret fashion show in 2018 and now the brand is back with another show in 2024 after a break
Gigi Hadid and Barbara Palvin were among the models undergoing hair and makeup as they prepared to hit the runway earlier today
Ashley Graham (left) and Adriana Lima (right) have also been prepping backstage ahead of tonight’s show
They also hired Valentina Sampaio, their first transgender model, to star in their new VS Pink campaign after Razek left.
This year, Cher will be performing live onstage alongside the models in New York this evening.
Plus size model Ashley Graham will join Paloma Elsesser to promote body diversity on the catwalk, alongside former VS models Adriana Lima, Taylor Hill, Gigi Hadid and Barbara Palvin.
But can the brand distance themselves from its ties to Jeffrey Epstein, alleged misogyny and some ex-models claiming it promotes unhealthy body types?
Irina Shayk scrolled through her phone as she prepped with a face mask for tonight’s runway
Paloma Elsesser, Barbara, and Jasmine Tookes donned the brand’s familiar pink striped robe earlier today
‘Culture of misogyny’
Bagging the title of Victoria’s Secret angel seemed to carry many perks, one of them becoming an international star not just in the fashion industry, but beyond.
However, interviews with current and former employees of the company allege that ex-top executive Ed Razek, 76, was unprofessional on several occasions.
Razek, who was one of the top executives at L Brands, the parent company of VS, had claims of sexual assault made against him.
According to the New York Times, he attempted to kiss models, asked them to sit on his lap and touched one’s crotch before the 2018 runway show.
Andi Muise claimed the brand had stopped hiring her to model at fashion shows after she rejected Razek’s advances.
Aged 19, she was invited to a dinner with him. Muise was picked up in a chauffeured car and said Razek attempted to kiss on the way to the restaurant.
The newspaper said it saw emails exchanged between the pair, in which he suggested she move into his home in Turks and Caicos.
Casey Crowe Taylor, a former public relations employee at Victoria’s Secret, said she had witnessed Razek’s behaviour.
Andi Muise claimed the brand had stopped hiring her to model at fashion shows after she rejected Razek’s advances
However, interviews with current and former employees of the company allege that ex-top executive Ed Razek, 76, (pictured) was unprofessional on several occasions
She told the outlet: ‘This abuse was just laughed off and accepted as normal. It was almost like brainwashing.
‘And anyone who tried to do anything about it wasn’t just ignored. They were punished.’
At a fashion shoot in 2015, she claimed Razek looked her up and down when she went to get seconds during a company buffet lunch.
Crowe Taylor – who was 5ft 10in and weighed 10 stone – then said she was ‘berated’ about her weight and said that Razek told her to lay off the pasta and bread.
Although she complained to HR about the interaction, she said that as far as she was aware, no action was taken, leading to her resignation.
Employees also said Les Wexner, Victoria’s Secret 87-year-old billionaire chief executive, mocked the retail industry’s efforts to embrace a variety of body types by allegedly saying, ‘Nobody goes to a plastic surgeon and says, ‘Make me fat.’
Alyssa Miller, who occasionally modelled for the lingerie company, said Razek ‘exuded toxic masculinity.’
Ed Razek allegedly said that Bella Hadid had ‘perfect titties’ during a fitting in 2018 (pictured on the catwalk in 2018)
During a fitting in 2018, Bella Hadid was being measured for underwear that would be appropriate to air on television ahead of the runway show.
Workers who were there at the time claimed Razek was sat watching the fitting and said ‘Forget the panties,’ adding that the bigger question was whether broadcasting standards would allow Hadid to walk ‘down the runway with those perfect titties’.
Razek released this statement at the time and declined to respond to specific allegations: ‘The accusations in this reporting are categorically untrue, misconstrued or taken out of context.
‘I’ve been fortunate to work with countless, world-class models and gifted professionals and take great pride in the mutual respect we have for each other.’
Ties to Epstein
During the 90s, Jeffrey Epstein was an adviser to Wexner, posing as a recruiter to access young models, according to a New York Times exposé.
Insurance executive Robert Meister introduced Wexner to Epstein in the 80s, with the newspaper stating that the VS boss ‘authorized him to borrow money on his behalf, to sign his tax returns, to hire people and to make acquisitions’.
In 1997, Alicia Arden, then 27 years old, was invited into a hotel room by Epstein where she thought they would be discussing the Victoria’s Secret catalogue.
But she told the documentary, Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons, that the disgraced businessman grabbed and attempted to undress her.
During the 90s, Jeffrey Epstein was an adviser to Wexner, posing as a recruiter to access young models according to a New York Times exposé
Les Wexner and Ed Razek (R) pose backstage in 2016 in New York City
A year prior, Maria Farmer was working on an art project for Epstein in Wexner’s mansion in Ohio.
Epstein sexually assaulted her while she was at the house, according to an affidavit she filed in federal court.
Farmer said she left the room and called the authorities, but claimed Wexner’s security staff ‘refused to let her leave for 12 hours’.
Wexner stepped down from his role at Victoria’s Secret in 2020, a year after Epstein died in his New York prison cell while waiting for his trial on sex trafficking charges.
At the time, Wexner’s attorney issued the following statement: ‘The issue of Epstein claiming an association with Victoria’s Secret was raised on one occasion with Mr. Wexner.
‘He confronted Epstein and was clear that it was a violation of Company policy for him to suggest that he was associated in any way with Victoria’s Secret and that Epstein was forbidden from ever doing so again. Epstein denied having done so.’
‘Unhealthy’ models
Ed Razek made controversial comments about plus-size and transgender models in an interview with Vogue in 2019.
‘If you’re asking if we’ve considered putting a transgender model in the show or looked at putting a plus-size model in the show, we have,’ he said.
But Razek was then asked: ‘Shouldn’t you have transsexuals in the show?’ To which he then said: ‘No. No, I don’t think we should.
‘The show is a fantasy. It’s a 42-minute entertainment special. That’s what it is.
‘It is the only one of its kind in the world, and any other fashion brand in the world would take it in a minute, including the competitors that are carping at us. And they carp at us because we’re the leader.
Bridget Malcolm (pictured in 2015) accused Victoria’s Secret of promoting unhealthy body types ahead of their show in 2018
In 2012 Adriana Lima (pictured in 2013) revealed she’d been on a liquid-only diet for nine days pre-show to help shed her baby weight
‘We attempted to do a television special for plus sizes [in 2000]. No one had any interest in it. Still don’t.’
These comments led to Razek stepping down from his position as chief marketing officer of VS’s parent company and there has not been a fashion show since – until now.
Following the backlash, Victoria’s Secret released a statement from Razek on X, which read: ‘To be clear, we absolutely would cast a transgender model in our show. We’ve had transgender models come to castings… And like many others, they didn’t make it.
‘It was never about gender,’ he added.
Bridget Malcolm accused Victoria’s Secret of promoting unhealthy body types ahead of their show in 2018.
Malcolm, who modelled for the brand twice in 2015 and 2016, said models are often ‘rewarded with high-profile work’ for ‘starving’ themselves.
She claims VS pushes unattainable beauty standards, which ultimately sends the wrong message to young girls that ‘to be beautiful is to be extremely underweight.’
Malcolm wrote: ‘Thinking back on my time in that space, I am always struck by how sick I was. I was completely fooling myself into believing that I was healthy, fit and an honest representation of a woman.
‘The fact that I was rewarded with high-profile work because I had starved myself so effectively leaves me feeling extremely uncomfortable.
‘I have seen too many of my friends rewarded for the same life-threatening behaviour, and penalised when they have dared to turn up to a casting an inch larger.’
Victoria’s Secret requires all its Angels to be 5ft 9in tall and have 24in waists, wrote the Mail on Sunday in 2015.
VS creative director Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou claimed: ‘It’s like being an Olympian – they have to be in peak condition.’
The company also hired Valentina Sampaio (pictured), their first transgender model, to star in their new VS Pink campaign after Razek left
Victoria’s Secret mixed things up after the controversy by hiring plus size models for their campaign, such as Paloma Elsesser
One of her Angels, Alessandra Ambrosio, admitted: ‘You work out as an athlete. All your mind, all your everything goes into it.’
In 2012 Adriana Lima revealed she’d been on a liquid-only diet for nine days pre-show to help shed her baby weight.
This led to a mini-uproar that led to Lima having to issue a warning to girls not to follow her example.
Lima also revealed that 12 hours before a show, she’d have ‘no liquids at all so you dry out; sometimes you can lose up to eight pounds just from that’.
Model Robyn Lawley who has appeared in Sports Illustrated and on the covers of Vogue Italia and Australia said she went to a Victoria’s Secret casting call in 2012.
She wasn’t hired and told the Guardian: ‘It’s a running joke that they see curvier girls every year and never cast them.
‘This whole starvation-camp situation before you have to walk that catwalk is ridiculous. Some of them are my friends on that stage; I’m not pulling them apart.
‘But they have to put their bodies to such extremes once they cast the show, they couldn’t maintain that kind of lifestyle or they’d die.’
Former Victoria’s Secret Angels Jasmine Tookes, from California, and Josephine Skriver, from Denmark, also gave an insight into the amount of work that goes into making their bodies look perfect for the catwalk.
This includes ‘two layers of body makeup and sparkle and glitter and oil’, smothered onto their skin to give the illusion that their bodies had no flaws.
Plus-size model Ashley Graham is walking on the Victoria’s Secret catwalk this year
American model Jasmine Tookes, 32, said that she her real life is different to the life that people see on her Instagram
Josephine Skriver said that her own mother would not even recognise her when looking at her modelling photos
The duo spoke on the Real Pod podcast about their image on the catwalk to host Victoria Garrick.
Josephine said that the glamorous side to her onstage was a version of who she was and compared it to a work uniform.
‘Some people are told they need to wear a suit to an office – it’s just part of our image.
‘Nobody wants to be in their work suit twenty-four seven, none of us want to be glammed up twenty-four seven,’ she said.
Victoria said that for the audience who would watch the shows or look at pictures of the Angels, it wasn’t immediately obvious that they were Photoshopped or used body makeup.
She added that because there weren’t as many filters and apps to edit photos available at the time, people were unaware.
Josephine added: ‘I would stand next to the big billboards on the street and I could stand there for 30 minutes and not a single person could put the two people together.
‘I’m like I don’t even look like my pictures. Sometimes my mum would be like, ‘Is that you? I didn’t even know you could look like this.’
‘Even though you were shooting underwear constantly, I never really felt naked because we had two layers of body makeup and sparkle and glitter and oil.’
Victoria’s Secret has been approached for comment.
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