When the lights lastly dimmed on the 2025 Victoria’s Secret Trend Present final evening, the very first thing company noticed was a gold mild emanating from backstage. Mannequin Jasmine Tookes, 9 months pregnant, opened the present in a gold macrame gown with drop pearls and a pearl and crystal wing within the form of a clam shell.
Artwork buffs would possibly discover that the shell is a callback to Sandro Boticelli’s renaissance portray “Delivery of Venus,” symbolizing sensuality, divine magnificence, rebirth, and new beginnings. The cultural reference is a extra elevated and thought of nod to womanhood than the present’s earlier themes which have included “Santa’s Helpers” or “delicious sweets.”
The look—and the present—definitely marked a brand new second for Victoria’s Secret. And that was the intention of CEO Hillary Tremendous, who mentioned so in a notice left at every seat. The present “marked a brand new period of horny,” she wrote. “Not one outlined by a single look or temper, however by one thing deeper: the sensation of being really snug and assured in your personal pores and skin.”
Victoria’s Secret is in dire want of a reset, and its new government inventive director Adam Selman delivered on this first time producing the mega-show. Selman, who joined Victoria’s Secret in April following three years as chief design officer at Rihanna’s rival lingerie model Savage x Fenty, in addition to operating his personal self-named label and Adam Selman Sport (ASS), If you happen to can’t inform by his sport label, Selman just isn’t particularly self-serious, however he’s astute and forward-thinking, and his design and styling sensibilities deftly stability sophistication and enjoyable. (The 2012 VS fashion show look and crystal naked dress he designed for Rihanna on the 2014 CFDA awards are ones for the historical past books.)
Selman’s objective was to carry capital-F style again to the Victoria’s Secret Trend present, and within the course of give the Victoria’s Secret model a cultural revamp. Within the week main as much as the present, he instructed me that the stress was setting in. “I’ve realized prior to now few days that I’m the one one that oversees the entire thing.” He pulled it off. The 2025 Victoria’s Secret present was so well-executed it might have outpaced the present authority of the particular model and product.
However Selman nonetheless has his work lower out for him. Everybody is aware of Victoria’s Secret. Following years of design and cultural irrelevance, to not point out self-inflicted enterprise challenges together with a poisonous work tradition and entrenched misogyny, and hundreds of store closures over the past five years, it’s been a very long time since tastemakers have cared.
A brand new period for an previous mall model
Selman isn’t the one one tasked with making an attempt. Victoria’s Secret has undergone almost full inventive and model marketing management adjustments since final yr’s present. Tremendous, who joined from Savage x Fenty simply earlier than the present final yr, continues to be in. However Sarah Sylvester, government vp of brand name advertising for Victoria’s Secret, who we spoke to about this event last year, is out.
Earlier this yr, the corporate made a slew of latest exec-level appointments, principally girls: Anne Stephenson, its chief merchandising officer, as president; Ali Dillon, former president of Alex Mill as president of Pink, Amy Kocourek as president of magnificence (previously chief merchandising officer at Kendra Scott), and Selman as ECD in April. In Could, the corporate additionally employed Elizabeth Press as its CMO, who previously held the function at Anthropologie.
These hires, and the corporate’s renewed deal with its style present, are in service of what Victoria’s Secret calls its new “path to potential” development technique. It desires to construct on its 4% Q2 comparable gross sales development, reestablish Victoria’s Secret as an “authority in bras,” rebuild Pink as a definite model, and develop its magnificence enterprise.
“Model consciousness is extremely excessive for this model,” Preis tells me in regards to the goal of the style present. “It’s extra about model relevance and model consideration for the viewers that doesn’t at present store with us.” (The corporate may also intently monitor present metrics like website visits, impressions, and social engagement, Preis says.)
A FASHION FANTASY WORLD
Selman’s total imaginative and prescient for the present was to raise it by making use of the inventive route one may need as the top of a style maison, not a languishing mall model. For this yr’s present, he crafted the narrative round an total story arc (the theme is day to nighttime), fairly than the disparate themed sections that anchored earlier exhibits.
“The present’s so huge, the expectations are huge, the personalities inside it’s huge, so I needed to give you a easy concept,” says Selman. “After I got here into the model, one of many first issues I saved listening to on repeat was that Victoria’s Secret is exclusive in that we’re the very first thing she places on and the very last thing she takes off and I like that type of sentiment. So I took that concept and I’m doing the context of day to nighttime with the present.”
The golden first chapter that centered on the model’s nudes and was opened by a radiant Tookes, was adopted by a scorching peony pink “Bombshell,” chapter. However you wouldn’t realize it with out trying on the run of present. A round stage emerged down the runway and showgirls with pink feather followers danced over from the aisle. Then, mannequin Gigi Hadid emerged in an outsized peony opera coat, rapidly adopted by Irina Shank in a crystal fan headpiece and Paloma Elsesser in pink peony petal wings.
The pre-show feedback, no less than on Victoria’s Secret’s owned channels, referred to as for long-standing model icons: huge hair, extra glitter, and the return of fashions like Adriana Lima. (“Individuals need just a little fantasy and there’s no higher model to try this,” says Preis.) This part introduced all that, however not in a means you’d anticipate. It was a glowing glamorous, Ziegfeld-fantasy-inspired morning.
“That’s our first assortment, or the primary part of the present, and the way that would come to life in a extra style ahead, considerate means?” he asks. The present chapters arc towards nightfall and usher in different moods and model codes. The Pink halftime present was an exception and a weak chapter total; with jean jackets, layered bikinis and black sweatpants that didn’t talk a brand new viewpoint.
“Sizzling pursuit” opened with a grainy black and pink interstitial mimicking previous film opinions and washed the runway in scarlet pink, together with a slew of provocatively horny customized designs, together with a customized crystal backless minidress and g-string worn by mannequin Amelia Grey and customized chrome angel wings worn by mannequin Alex Consani. “Magic hour” adopted, and introduced outfits in gradient pinks, mandarins, and lilacs; adopted by a black lace and crystal sparke in “black tie.” Every chapter, by the best way, hyperlinks up with a perfume—a play for its rising magnificence strains
Renewed model heritage
Like many resurgent manufacturers, the technique is to shed what isn’t working and leverage the cultural cachet of the model heritage that does work. The trick is to reinterpret it in a brand new means that may reestablish modern relevance within the present market.
The time period “fashion-forward” got here up repeatedly as a means this present can be new and extra related. Individuals complained final yr that the clothes appeared low-cost; the look of the garments and styling had been an evening and day distinction this yr. “If you understand my work, it’s all centered round playfulness and shade and expression, in order that’s an enormous theme,” he says.
Referencing the exhibits of high-end designer manufacturers, Selman says he sought to raise the expertise and combine codes that stem from the model’s historical past all through every chapter of the present, and nod to what’s taking place in tradition extra broadly. “I’m making an attempt to consider the world that we’re constructing past simply the present right here,” he says.
One such instance: Selman says he’s displaying how Victoria’s Secret can faucet into present style developments via lingerie styling within the present; a fantasy with real-world functions. “Bare dressing is so in proper now, and displaying our buyer tips on how to put on the product in a possibly a extra fashion-forward means that resonates with style and tradition outdoors of simply the present” is one other focus.
With a run time of about 40 minutes (about 4 occasions longer than a maison present), 72 appears, and 45 million of digital viewers, he introduced the spectacle. Together with a crew of consultants, Selman directed promo, movement design, occasion manufacturing, set design, mannequin casting, curated entrance row seating, forged musical company, and the appears themselves, right down to the enormous crystal earrings.
Selman labored with artisans in Paris and Italy to create the jeweled wings mannequin put on on stage; its personal lofty design problem. Selman crafted exceptional reinterpretations of wings as headpieces, too, just like the golden headpiece Joan Smalls wore within the opener, gracing her head like a dainty set of Apollo’s wings, or Treasured Lee’s peony petal and crystal headpiece or Anok Yai’s gorgeous pink fringe and pearl headpiece within the bombshell section. “At this time greater than ever earlier than, retail, if it’s going to achieve success, there needs to be an leisure issue,” says Preis.
“Victoria’s Secret created this unbelievable expertise, proper?” says Selman. “It’s the greatest style present on this planet and so there’s a lot wealthy historical past and a lot pleasure round it too. We’ve ravenous followers round these occasions, so I believe it’s about proudly owning it and actually leaning into what we’re good at.”
Followers appear to need the enjoyable and the spectacle of all of it.
Pleasure, however to not please everybody
The Victoria’s Secret present is a glitter bomb of frothy pleasure, nevertheless it’s not out to please everybody. “It’s enjoyable when it’s actual,” says Selman. “Every little thing feels so phony proper now. The extra actual which you can give folks—that’s when issues will actually come to life. I believe we will’t be every little thing to everybody.”
Selman says his present is for anybody who desires to be part of it—nevertheless it’s okay if that’s not you. “I would like everybody to see themselves on this model. I would like everybody to see themselves within the present and the ability that we will present; the ability that lingerie can present. If you happen to see your self in it, we welcome you. And in the event you don’t see your self in it, that’s cool too. We nonetheless welcome you.”
Manufacturers not often could make everybody their buyer; in actual fact, it’s a idiot’s errand to attempt—so long as your core viewers buys in.
The G-string-thin nice line for Victoria’s Secret nonetheless, is whether or not it could actually really seize what’s traditionally sellable in regards to the heritage model—the glitz, glamour, and intercourse attraction—whereas shedding the traditionally unhealthy associations: getting girls to purchase into intercourse that’s embodied via the male gaze and packaged us up as campy Christmas presents, sweet, or calendar ladies. I wish to look scorching, and for me personally, that and style are usually not mutually unique qualities.
“What does horny imply sooner or later?” asks Preis. “There’s not only one definition. It’s actually the way it makes one really feel and makes one be ok with themselves. We are able to and we must always personal that place. We already are identified for that, and that’s one thing that we must always proceed on with.”
