This Year's Victoria's Secret Show Will Feature An Articulated Python Made Of Crystals, A 16-Carat Diamond Ring

The Victoria’s Secret fashion show tapes tomorrow, and Women’s Wear Daily sat in on one of the last rounds of costume fittings. This is what was going on:

Jewelry designer David Mandel was creating a four-foot Diamond Back python in a myriad of brightly colored Swarovski crystals and vintage crystals from his personal collection. Key accessories were snake eyes from a taxidermist. “Metal doesn’t drape….I’m literally sculpting with stones, and sometimes I have to solder pieces in midair to get the right angle,” said Mandel, as he popped a snake eye into its socket. He turned around to show another costume for the Angels in Bloom segment, which will feature scores of hothouse flowers such as an oversized hibiscus embedded on a lavish multicolor costume. […]

Miranda Kerr had just finished her fitting in an emerald-green velvet bodysuit encrusted with Swarovski crystals and dyed-to-match feathers for the Circus segment. Cameron Russell stepped out in the Swarovski anniversary piece in fantasy platforms by Nicholas Kirkwood. She wore what appeared to be well more than $5 million in jewels by London Jewelers, including a 16-carat diamond ring.

The show will feature 65 costumes, 28 of which have Angel wings. And last but not least, some people named Justin Bieber, Rihanna, and Bruno Mars will perform live. The whole shebang will be broadcast on CBS on November 29.

Also among the show’s confirmed cast? Alessandra Ambrosio, who (as previously reported) will be wearing the $2.5 million diamond bra. Fellow Brazilian Adriana Lima was also spotted coming in for a fitting. So is Hilary Rhoda, who Tweeted a photo of herself at the gym in preparation for her turn on the runway. And British models Cara Delevingne and Jourdan Dunn, each of whom will be making her Victoria’s Secret debut.