I know you probably "don't care" but as the Victoria's Secret fashion show will take place between November the 8th and the 10th and will air on TV around the 11th, I decided to introduce you to the current Victoria's Secret angels. The brand is also a popular part of pop/fashion culture.
What is Victoria's Secret?
Victoria's Secret is a lingerie brand founded in 1977 by a man called Roy Raymond (Short Victoria's Secret is VS). He founded the brand after walking in a lingerie store to buy his wife lingerie:
the saleslady made him feel like a pervert by staring at him and the lingerie was "ugly, floral-print nylon nightgowns". He basically wanted to make a store where men could feel comfortable buying lingerie for their significant others and with pretty lingerie.
The name Victoria's Secret came from the architecture of the stores that was very inspired by the boudoirs of the Victorian Era. It was sold to Les Wexner in 1983 for only 1 million dollars (the brand was founded with $800,000 USD). The brand is now a multi-billion dollar company and the largest American retailer of women's lingerie.
What makes the brand different from other lingerie brands?
They call a few models angels but we'll get back to that later.
The yearly holiday commercial.
The Super Bowl half-time commercial.
The Victoria's Secret fashion show or VSFS is a huge event/fashion show with the biggest performers, the biggest models, the most beautiful runways and the biggest celebs invited.
The fantasy bra is bra they make once every year with precious expensive materials such as diamonds, pearls and gold. They choose one angel (only angels can get it, not regular models) to honor with the fantasy bra each year to reward her for how hard she worked for the brand, how long she worked for it, etc...
The angel chosen wears the Fantasy Bra in the fashion show and takes promo pictures of it. The bra gets molded for the model's body (created for her body) but it is actually available for sale after the fashion show. Some people actually bought a bra or two through the years but most of them don't get bought so they get destroyed.
The most expensive Fantasy Bra ever is the Red Hot Fantasy bra worn by Gisele Bundchen in 2000 which cost 15 million dollars. (it's also is the world's most expensive item of lingerie).
There's also also a Swarovski outfit and Swarovski wings made of crystals.
What are angels?
On both the fashion show and campaigns. Victoria's Secret uses their angels but also other models who aren't their angels. The difference? It's pretty simple Victoria's Secret angels have a full-time exclusive contract with the brand, are the spokespersons and are supposed to represent it.
Only angels can get the fantasy bra and appear on the TV ads (The Super Bowl halftime/Holiday). The choice of angels is super important because some people only follow/buy Victoria's Secret because they like one or many angels.
They need to be beautiful, have great bodies, workout, have a great life hygiene but also be well spoken, have charisma, and be loved in the fashion industry.
Currently the brand has 13 angels but the superstar angels are the old angels and they are these three:
Adriana Lima
She's now 37 years old (36 on the gif above). She's Brazilian. but she is of Portuguese, Swiss, Native Brazilian, Japanese, and West Indian ancestry. She stayed a virgin until marriage and she has 11.7 million followers on Instagram.
She won several beauty pageants when she was younger but wanted to be a doctor. She only became a model by entering a modeling contest with a friend of hers who was scared to participate alone. She was once engaged to a prince and she has two kids but got divorced with their father MBA player Marko Jaric.
She has been a Victoria's Secret angel for 18 years which is the longest time ever. She wore 3 fantasy bras, which is the most ever along with Heidi Klum. She's the only Victoria's Secret angel that has a wax statue. She does charity work by helping an orphanage in her hometown.
Behati Prinsloo
She's 30 years old. She was born in South Africa but raised in Namibia. She has 5,4 million followers on Instagram.
Her father is a church minister. She was discovered in a grocery store with her grandparents. She dropped out of School in 9th Grade to pursue modeling.
She's a philanthropist as well. She collected and delivered hundreds of letters of hope and helped raise funds for the survivors of the Haiti 2010 earthquake. There's a short film called letters to Haiti she made with her cameraman from the her journey to help Haiti. She's married to the signer of Maroon 5 Adam Levine and they have two daughters together. She stars in a few Maroon 5 videos including "moves like jagger", "animals" and "girl like you".
Candice Swanepoel
She's 30 years old. She was born and raised in South-Africa. She grew up on a dairy and beef farm. She has the most followers on Instagram among the angels, 12.5 million followers.
She was a ballet dancer and dreamed of doing that as a job. She was spotted in a Durban flea market by a model scout at age 15. She's always among the 10 most paid models in the world according to Forbes except last year.
She has been dating her boyfriend Hermann Nicoli, a Brasilian Model since they met in Paris when she was 17 and he was 23. After 10 years together, the couple got engaged and now they have two sons.
She launched her own swimwear line called Tropic Of C in 2018. She was voted most beautiful woman in the world by reaching the n1 spot of the 2014 Maxim's hot 100 list. She's involved in Mothers2Mothers, a charity devoted to achieving an "HIV-free generation" of children and mothers in Africa.
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