Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show returns after 4-year hiatus

WASHINGTON — The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is coming back after a four-year hiatus.

Officials with the lingerie brand announced the show’s return during a call with investors Friday.

ThL Be fashion show is an elaborate affair used to market the brand’s goods in high-profile settings. Models with the company, known as Victoria’s Secret Angels, wore elaborate costumed lingerie and walked themed catwalks to music by top artists.

Victoria’s Secret chief financial officer Timothy Johnson said the show will be revamped after controversies shut it down in 2019.

The previous version of the show was run by L Brands, the corporate parent company Victoria’s Secret split from in 2021. But the new one will be the first run solely by the lingerie brand.

“We’re going to continue to lean into the marketing spend to invest in the business, both at top-of-funnel and also to support the new version of our fashion show, which is to come later this year,” Johnson said.

Part of the show’s decline in the late 2010s was the fallout from then CEO of L Brands Les Wexner’s close ties with sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein.

The lingerie show also received backlash from advocates over how it portrayed women’s bodies, with opponents saying it objectified women and wasn’t inclusive of different body types.

In recent years, the brand has attempted to change this image, introducing transgender models, a model with Down syndrome and even a male model.

One of the big drivers of the show’s hiatus was declining sales and ratings. Its first airing in 2001 was the peak of its ratings, with 12.4 million viewers. Over the years, that has steadily declined, hitting a record low of only 3.27 million in 2018, according to W magazine.

When then-CFO Stuart Burgdoerfer announced the show wouldn’t be happening in 2019, he cited sales figures indicating there was no jump in the number of women shopping for Victoria’s Secret products in the days after the show.

It’s unclear when the show will return, but previous iterations were held near the end of the year.

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