5 MORE DAYS!

I cannot believe its less than a week till this year’s Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show airs on TV! Every year, I gather all my gal pals, put on some comfy pajamas, get some tubs of “half baked” and “chunky monkey” Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, and watch the most fabulous event in television.

Samantha, a classmate in my marketing class, posted a wonderful article about this year’s fashion show. Read it HERE.

I guess we are all going to be watching the show together on Tuesday!

Anyways, I went digging to know more about Victoria’s Secret and their huge PR stunt which is the fashion show. Here is what I found out.

It all started when when a graduate student named Roy Raymond from Stanford Graduate School Of Business felt embarrassed when it came to purchasing beautiful lingerie from a department store. Year 1977, Roy opened the first store at Stanford Shopping Center in San Francisco. The stores were created to make a man comfortable when purchasing women’s lingerie, the decor of the stores were Victorian designed with wood panel walls and friendly staff. Instead of bras and panties being hung on a rack, they were already paired together in all sizes and mounted on frames. The stores were very detailed and were quite inviting when a gentleman came to purchase lingerie. It is very ironic that part of what differentiates Victoria’s secret from other lingerie stores is that their atmospherics was initially targeted to help the men!

In 1995, the FIRST Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show was born! The first show is almost unrecognizable by today’s standards: no over-the-top costumes, no live musical performances, and no public broadcast. It was simple, elegant, but still, with top models like Stephanie Seymour, Beverly Peele, and Frederique van der Wal, it was the start of a fashion phenomenon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, oh how the show has evolved to the out-of-this-world spectacle that the whole world watches! After introducing the WINGS in their 1997 fashion show, Victoria’s Secret makes every show better and better by each year. More glitter, more wings, more big celebrities, more supermodels, more lights and cameras, and more worshipers! The Victoria’s Secret Fashion show is a huge PR stunt to keep the whole world watching their lingerie. Actually, the lingerie is not even the focus of the show – it’s the beautiful and creative costumes and production! Unlike other fashion shows that keep everything simple and make the clothing the focus, Victoria’s Secret puts the focus on their supermodels and their production. It all works though since it makes the whole show entertaining. The spectacle keeps people watching every year and brings people inside their stores because they also want to be like the fabulous models in the runway. (I know I want to be one! )

 

 

Check out the evolution of VS fashion show HERE!