A wake of positive change, after victoria Secrets Funeral

A bitter-sweet end for Victoria Secret’s annual Fashion Show which caused an outcry for the inclusivity wave.

BY ALANA MANN

13 DECEMBER 2019

Looking back at 2018, Victoria Secret was beginning to show initial cracks of its refined polished surface. Razek and Monica Mitro, head of P.R., were asked about the obvious lack of inclusion of plus-size and transgender models in the infamous annual fashion show.

Razek’s reply to the matter was highly critiqued for being ignorant towards a large portion of women in our population today, “It’s like, why doesn’t your show do this? 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. 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.” Razed retired after the backlash of the interview with Vogue in 2018 and shortly after Victoria Secret announced they would be casting their first transgender model, Valentina Sampaio.

Countless YouTube videos were published by Vogue on ‘How the Victoria Secret Angels Get Runway Ready’. If you were to type this debatable question into Google, you would find 21,400,000 results on supermodel diets and exercise regimes. Magazines jumped on the trend of the fantasied Victoria Secret body, but in the year 2019 where diversity and inclusivity are highly respected in most brands, have we outgrown the idea of ‘perfection’? and is the termination of the Victoria Secret Fashion Show a sign of positive change for women going forward?

The final show was aired in December 2018 and was watched by 3.3 million Americans, in comparison to their first broadcast in 2001, which enticed 12 million people. The significant drop in views has believed to be a repercussion of outcry for diversity from fans. Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty lingerie Fashion show took place at New York Fashion Week in September 2019, it included women of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities and identities. Rihanna was especially praised for casting two pregnant models, including Slick Woods, who Rihanna deemed as her ‘Fenty Muse’. Fans proclaimed that the show has ‘raised the bar’ in all aspects of inclusivity to women, but Rihanna has been set on her mission for positive change in the beauty industry too. Announcing earlier this year that her cosmetic line ‘Fenty Beauty’ would include a 40-shade foundation rage, which caused a chain reaction of brands to encourage larger shade ranges, as the headlines deemed this response as “The Fenty Effect”.

It was not long before viewers started to make comparisons between Victoria Secret and Savage x Fenty. There was a noticeable difference between the two shows values and the values Victoria Secret stood by were ‘fantasy’, Rihanna focused on fresh, real and raw women. Notorious models made an appearance for Rihanna’s iconic show too, with Gigi Hadid being one of the main attractions. A former ‘VS angel’, who has been highly associated with Victoria Secret throughout her career, since her first appearance at the ‘Spread Your Wings and Fly’ runway in 2015. Gigi made a surprise statement that she would not be walking for the Victoria Secret 2017 show, held in Shanghai. “I’m so bummed I won’t be able to make it to China this year. Love my VS family and will be with all my girls in spirit!!” the model announced on Twitter. Can’t wait to tune in with everyone to see the beautiful show I know it will be, and already can’t wait for next year!”. Gigi returned alongside fellow infamous models, Kendall Jenner, her sister Bella Hadid and Adriana Lima, for the following 2018 runway in New York.

In the days of busy journalism surrounding the end of an era for the Victoria Secret show, Zozibini Tunzi was crowned Miss Universe 2019 on December 8th. Before being crowned, Tunzi stated “I grew up in a world where a woman who looks like me, with my kind of skin and my kind of hair, was never considered to be beautiful, and I think it is time that that stops – today. I want children to look at me and see my face, and I want them to see their faces reflected in mine”. The show additionally made history by including its first openly gay contestant, Miss Myanmar Swe Zin Htet. She described the experience as “unforgettable and purposeful” and praised the contest for being able to voice the things she is passionate about, "I always had a voice, but Miss Universe allowed me to amplify it". She explained that the people of Myanmar are not excepting of the LGBTQ+ community, homosexuality is considered a prison sentence in her home country. With outlooks like this still in full-force across the globe, public platforms are popping up every day for women to curate milestones for change, sometimes as quick as overnight.

The self-love movement has expanded enormously over 2019, with many women deciding to refuse society's beauty ideals that have accumulated through the media for decades. More and more women are taking strides towards changing the ‘norm’ of the female body type being shown on catwalks, campaigns and even mannequin sizes.

There are now hundreds of Instagram pages dedicated to self-love and self-acceptance. Model Jada Sezer and Journalist Bryony Gordon ran the London Marathon earlier this year in their underwear, “to show fitness is for all sizes”. Steps like this have helped reinforce inclusivity into online shops, the high street and the industry as a whole. Online store Missguided announced it’s ‘Make your Mark’ campaign in December 2017. They dubbed the campaign to be a representation for women to be confident in their bodies, they now show models with stretch marks, acne and other so-called ‘imperfections’ online and on mannequins in their stores. But as much as we think this could be a good thing, Missguided shortly came under fire, as customers accused them of editing stretch marks on to the model’s bodies. The comment section was full of furious fans and accusations that the stretch marks were deliberately modified to look more obvious. This farce leaves many women hung on if this movement is seen as empowering or just plain insulting. As all real women want is to be exactly that, real. We’ve learned that to have a Victoria Secret physique, hard work and effort is required all 365 days a year to be a ‘fantasy’. But, 80% of women with stretch marks, 55% of women with acne and an average woman in the UK now a size 16, do not have time to be a ‘fantasy’, they’re too busy being real.