By Megan Cathey
Nestled between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the most watched and talked about fashion show of the year: the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Millions tune in to watch as glamazon models, a.k.a. the “Angels,” walk down the runway wearing extravagant costume lingerie sets. The event also includes elaborate set designs that correspond with different themes throughout the show, as well as performances by leading entertainers such as Taylor Swift (2013), Kanye West (2011), and Katy Perry (2010). However, the models are always the stars of the show. Last year the show drew 9.71 million viewers, many of those viewers being young women. Therefore, as this year’s show airs on December 9th, let’s keep a few things in mind when we tune in.
1. Just because you’re not a Victoria’s Secret model doesn’t mean you’re not attractive.
It saddens me to see so many girls post on social media about how the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show makes them feel fat/ugly. So you may have a little belly bulge, or maybe some acne scarring. You may not be model height, or be able to fill out a Fantasy Bra like Adriana Lima. Sure, Candice Swanepoel and Behati Prinsloo are beautiful, but just because you may not fit into Victoria’s Secret narrow ideal of beauty doesn’t mean you’re not attractive. In fact, I bet you’re pretty cute.
2. Victoria Secret’s narrowly defined ideal of beauty
In not so surprising news, the majority of the Angels are white. Although they’ve added more black models over the years, for example Jourdan Dunn and Maria Bourges, women of other races are underrepresented. The show only included its first Asian model, Liu Wen, in 2009. The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is supposed to be a celebration of female sexuality and girl power, but when the models all look similar, it suggests that only thin, able-bodied, and conventionally (by Eurocentric standards) attractive women can attain that fun and sexy image.
3. Cultural Appropriation.
Despite the fact that there aren’t Native American models in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, that doesn’t prevent Victoria’s Secret from incorporating parts of Native American culture into their show. For example, two years ago white model Karlie Kloss strutted down the runway wearing a floor-length feathered headdress. Although Victoria’s Secret apologized for the costume and cut the bit during the television broadcast, their decision to include the costume in the first place shows a deep misunderstanding as to what’s culturally appropriate.
Wearing a Native American headdress is wrong for multiple reasons, but Victoria’s Secret’s decision to accessorize lingerie with a warbonnet just perpetuates the sexualization and fetishization of Native American women. And considering that Native Americans are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual assault than all other races, and that 1 out of 3 Native women will be raped in her lifetime, the over-sexualization of Native women poses a serious problem.
4. The casting process.
While the Victoria’s Secret models appear to be having the time of their lives on the runway, the casting process for their show sounds terrifying. Show caster Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou says of the process, “The final decision is made by the whole team, sitting at this long table in a room with really harsh lighting and [the models] have to walk towards us and away from us. They all have to do it—even the contracted girls—and it's incredibly nerve-wracking for them."
But the hard work isn’t over once the models are cast. To get their bodies as show-ready as possible, the models have strict fitness regimes and diets. For example, Adriana Lima works out once a day with a personal trainer months leading up to the show, increasing to two workouts weeks before. The Angel preshow diet consists of a gallon of water and protein shakes made of powdered egg—solids are out of the question. Even with their genetics, the models work hard to look the way do. Although being a Victoria’s Secret model seems glamorous, it is a job after all, and one that requires near physical perfection.
5. Your worth is not directly correlated with how “good” you look in your underwear.
Even if we all switched our diets to protein shakes and water and worked out every day, the majority of us still wouldn’t fit the Victoria’s Secret Angel image. The Angels represent a small (minuscule, really) fraction of body types. I think it’s important to remember that there are a million ways to be beautiful and it’s not just by looking like Alessandra Ambrosio. Your worth as a person far exceeds whether you look like an “Angel” in your underwear.
Megan Cathey is a sophomore from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. She’s a Writing, Literature & Publishing major with a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies. Her interests include red lipstick, traveling to new places, and drinking copious amounts of iced tea and coffee. In 1998, she was kicked out of Sunshine Academy Preschool for throwing the time-out chair, so she’s challenged authority from the beginning.
1. Just because you’re not a Victoria’s Secret model doesn’t mean you’re not attractive.
It saddens me to see so many girls post on social media about how the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show makes them feel fat/ugly. So you may have a little belly bulge, or maybe some acne scarring. You may not be model height, or be able to fill out a Fantasy Bra like Adriana Lima. Sure, Candice Swanepoel and Behati Prinsloo are beautiful, but just because you may not fit into Victoria’s Secret narrow ideal of beauty doesn’t mean you’re not attractive. In fact, I bet you’re pretty cute.
2. Victoria Secret’s narrowly defined ideal of beauty
In not so surprising news, the majority of the Angels are white. Although they’ve added more black models over the years, for example Jourdan Dunn and Maria Bourges, women of other races are underrepresented. The show only included its first Asian model, Liu Wen, in 2009. The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is supposed to be a celebration of female sexuality and girl power, but when the models all look similar, it suggests that only thin, able-bodied, and conventionally (by Eurocentric standards) attractive women can attain that fun and sexy image.
3. Cultural Appropriation.
Despite the fact that there aren’t Native American models in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, that doesn’t prevent Victoria’s Secret from incorporating parts of Native American culture into their show. For example, two years ago white model Karlie Kloss strutted down the runway wearing a floor-length feathered headdress. Although Victoria’s Secret apologized for the costume and cut the bit during the television broadcast, their decision to include the costume in the first place shows a deep misunderstanding as to what’s culturally appropriate.
Wearing a Native American headdress is wrong for multiple reasons, but Victoria’s Secret’s decision to accessorize lingerie with a warbonnet just perpetuates the sexualization and fetishization of Native American women. And considering that Native Americans are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual assault than all other races, and that 1 out of 3 Native women will be raped in her lifetime, the over-sexualization of Native women poses a serious problem.
4. The casting process.
While the Victoria’s Secret models appear to be having the time of their lives on the runway, the casting process for their show sounds terrifying. Show caster Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou says of the process, “The final decision is made by the whole team, sitting at this long table in a room with really harsh lighting and [the models] have to walk towards us and away from us. They all have to do it—even the contracted girls—and it's incredibly nerve-wracking for them."
But the hard work isn’t over once the models are cast. To get their bodies as show-ready as possible, the models have strict fitness regimes and diets. For example, Adriana Lima works out once a day with a personal trainer months leading up to the show, increasing to two workouts weeks before. The Angel preshow diet consists of a gallon of water and protein shakes made of powdered egg—solids are out of the question. Even with their genetics, the models work hard to look the way do. Although being a Victoria’s Secret model seems glamorous, it is a job after all, and one that requires near physical perfection.
5. Your worth is not directly correlated with how “good” you look in your underwear.
Even if we all switched our diets to protein shakes and water and worked out every day, the majority of us still wouldn’t fit the Victoria’s Secret Angel image. The Angels represent a small (minuscule, really) fraction of body types. I think it’s important to remember that there are a million ways to be beautiful and it’s not just by looking like Alessandra Ambrosio. Your worth as a person far exceeds whether you look like an “Angel” in your underwear.
Megan Cathey is a sophomore from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. She’s a Writing, Literature & Publishing major with a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies. Her interests include red lipstick, traveling to new places, and drinking copious amounts of iced tea and coffee. In 1998, she was kicked out of Sunshine Academy Preschool for throwing the time-out chair, so she’s challenged authority from the beginning.