Why it’s time to bin the Victoria’s Secret fashion show

Let me explain all the things I hate about it…

Another December, another Victoria’s Secret fashion show. Well, “fashion” show…

You know the one. The one that gets replayed inexplicably on TV every year around Christmas, even though it’s 100% an ad. Sorry, I mean completely legitimate television #content.

There are so many things that I don’t get about the VS fashion show – namely why anyone cares about a runway show for lingerie (hey, none of you go to the Swim Runways at fash week, be honest). But also because I don’t see why it has a place in our lives in 2016.

Let me explain all the things I hate about it… because completely legitimate online #content.

Firstly, for weeks leading up to the runway (which exists primarily to showcase underwear paired with wings for some unknown reason?), we are bombarded with the inevitable wave of articles about how a bunch of women with perfect bodies had to somehow further improve their physical appearance via crash dieting. Because don’t you know you have to be as SKINNY AS HUMANELY POSSIBLE in order to wear lingerie? Normal bodies in bras, yuck!

Then, during the show, stunning creatures strut down a runway as various male entertainers leer at them hungrily, indicating their appreciation for exposed buttocks and ample bosoms. Creepy writers at various publications write about how these men can’t help themselves. She’s loving the attention! Look at how that young model does a ‘little seductive dance’ for her ex-boyfriend!

Ugh. Ugggggggh.

There really is no place for the Victoria’s Secret runway show in 2016. I mean, in its current form – a form that sees models boasting that they stop eating days before, even restricting water for 24 hours beforehand. A form of advertainment that draws a delightful link between being an ‘angel’ and being clad in a high-cut G-string and heels, on a YouTube video made primarily for teen boys to wank to over the coming year.

(Ha. Coming.)

“We’re interested in appealing to women because women do 99% of the shopping in Victoria’s Secret,” said chief marketing officer of Victoria’s Secret, Ed Razek, last year.

“Women have to say, ‘I want to look like that, I want to have that spirit or that confidence and strength’.”

Oh really, Mr Man who runs a lingerie company, is that what women want? They want to look at a model, who represents the 0.00001% of body types that exist in the world – a model who, herself, doesn’t even look like that 365 days a year – and order lingerie that arrives the next week and renders them a strapped baked ham decorated in shitty lace?

No, Mr Lingerie. I don’t want the shame spirals that ensue after attempting to compare myself to what was on the tin. Or the depressing realisation that you have way too much pictorial fodder for one of those expectation vs reality memes.

Then there’s his unfortunate wording of “women have to say, I want to look like that.”

The reference to ‘that’ being a model who has starved herself. (Literally, starved herself. I’m not exaggerating, read the interviews.)

Yeah, I’m just gonna leave that one there. 

But I shouldn’t be so harsh – I mean, they still let Irina Shayk walk last night and she’s three months pregnant. What a win for body diversity and equality for pregnant mothers! I assume she was wearing exactly the same stuff, right? You know, because she’s not fat, she’s pregnant. And VS should be proud to represent that on the runway. Right? RIGHT?

Sorry, what’s that? She wore a loose fringed jacket and a trench coat for her two looks? Oh.

Throw this one in the bin along with pageants that require women to compete by strutting around in bikinis, pls. I’m pretty sure they can achieve world peace without the swimsuit portion.

Follow this baked ham’s journey in sensible underwear over at @_thesecondrow