The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2017 Shanghai

It's been some time since I've written a blog post. I had been tuned out recently because of the issues going on in our government and politics, (which I may or may not decide to write about later), but I'm back for the most part anyway.

So it was that time of the year again, when Victoria's Secret hosts their annual fashion show extravaganza, featured with over-the-top wings, clothes, celebrities and singers. This particular year they hosted theirs in Shanghai, which unsurprisingly was a practiced business move on their end to tap into the market in China. With it's over a billion people population in China, Victoria's Secret could no doubt reap the benefit of expanding their markets there.

However, as I attempted to gear myself to watch this year's show, (hoping against hope that it would be better than the last one), to my dismay it was kind of well...bland.

This for a number of reasons really. The primary reason was it seemed to get old. I've been watching the show since back in probably 2010 and every year the excitement wears off just a little bit.

This one especially kind of flat with the organization and planning and of course, what kind of a show was it if you didn't have your dose of cultural appropriation. (I'm looking at you Nomadic Adventure segment), where someone on their staff or design team thought it would be a genuinely marvelous idea to emulate Native American tribal motifs, African tribal prints and art.

Cultural appropriation by the way, under the Cambridge Dictionary, is "the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing you understand or respect this culture." (See the image above). The image above shows Adriana Lima in a feathered wing get-up and the print from her bracelets to shoes was suppose to mimic African tribal art, but it fell significantly short and only seemed to confuse viewers as it appeared not like African Tribal art at all, but more to the effect of Native American appropriation. Below are a few more examples of cultural appropriation. Take note of the headdress and wings:

Victoria's Secret was pushing it here. What's even more frustrating is the fact that it didn't appear that they've even learned from their mistakes. They had previously screwed up with Karlie Kloss back in one of the earlier shows in 2012, where in the calendar segment she was shown walking out in a Native American lingerie getup for November, for which later they excluded when they aired the segment. Karlie Kloss, afterwards, was kind enough to apologize for having modeled in that.

It was only recently as of last year, when Elsa Hosk and some other models, (who I can't seem to name off the top of my head at this moment), came out with an outfit that appropriated Chinese culture with a dragon wrapped around her body. However, to my memory it didn't seem to have garnered as much attention as when Karlie Kloss or even when this year's cultural appropriation took place. It's kind of disappointing that they haven't seem to evolve past this yet.

This lack of evolution also seemed to have bit VS in the butt. While there's been a push in the modeling industry to feature more diverse bodies and individuals, VS seems to have fallen short. While this is their most diverse casting ever, the types of bodies featured on the runway, well....was rather uninspiring.

Sure you have your stick-skinny girls, but what about the ones with more muscular thighs? What about the ones with larger hips or larger breasts? What about broader shoulders? What about more differences in height? It got to a point where one girl could be featured for all the outfits and it wouldn't make a difference. It was just rather boring, which of course probably would occur if you are featuring the same sort of lingerie everytime. I will give credit to a few models, in particular Candice and Karlie, who had amazing muscle tone and strength that you could actually differentiate. Beauty is different for every person, but personally, I admired the muscle definition that Candice exhibited in her thighs and abs, especially post-baby (see below). I liked that she had more muscle on her body than in previous years.

As a previous athlete myself, I appreciate muscle definition more so than a long, skinny lean look. I think it sort of alerts me to the level of dedication individuals have to their bodies to obtain those muscles. (Muscle is harder to maintain and obtain than fat). I will admit though that VS this year has featured more models with more muscle definition and tone, (think Adriana Lima as well), which could be a sign that the modeling industry itself is moving in a direction where muscle definition is viewed highly attractive and desirable than purposeful loss of weight to the point of looking skeletal and unhealthy.

While the VS show may have been the event of the year for some people, it has some work that needs to be done to make up for some of the pitfalls of the show. VS is slowly becoming irrelevant and hopefully it can catch up to the new wave of what is "sexy".

#VictoriasSecret #Fashion #Lingerie #Shanghai