The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Was, as Usual, Full of Bad Ideas and Hideous Designs
Entertainment
Each year, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show drops its scantily clad glitter bomb unto society and reminds us all that we’re mostly not six-foot glamazons who devote our lives to pilates and kickboxing. And each year, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show innovates new and exciting ways to trot out stereotypes like floats at a shitty, dumb parade. And this year, the way they did that was utterly hideous.
Wedged between the other obligatory themes—“hot in silver,” “hot in black and white,” “playful but still sexy Pink segment,” “hot in diamonds”—was some kind of brightly clashing hodgepodge meant to represent varying aspects of global cultures pieced together. Does pastiche represent unity? In a video featuring some of the artisans who worked on this segment, called “The Road Ahead,” jewelry designer Arpana Rayamajhi says the “idea is that you’re blending in this and that from all cultures around the world.”
I’m a huge fan of Arpana’s work, and I think with her jewelry she successfully does that—blends cultural inspiration, including some from her own Nepalese background, to make something new that reflects the way cultures intermingle, especially in the time of globalism. Part of why her pieces work is because her respect for these cultures is apparent, both in the way she designs and the beauty of the finished product. It’s unfortunate, then, that the pieces she made for VS got buried by the clothes, which are surely beautifully crafted but compiled in such a way that makes no sense and is largely unflattering and haphazard?
Half a cheongsam chopped into a bolero jacket and cummerbund with Andean pom-poms? Russian embroidery? A woman wearing a freaking Chinese New Year dragon? What is all this? Ming Xi looks profoundly unstoked to be here at this moment.
To be fair, thoughtfulness and depth isn’t necessarily something we’re all relying on Victoria’s Secret for, but it’s not just some sort of dumb attempt at whimsical unity; as Cosmo’s Helin Jung points out, creative director Sophia Neophitou said a particular hand-painted piece of silk—which was painted by artisans who were not her—was “meant to be this naive, homespun, but this is so luxurious.”