Victoria’s Secret 2025 Returns to Power & Purpose
There are fashion shows that entertain, and then there are fashion moments that shift the atmosphere. The kind that hush a room, recalibrate a culture, and remind us why beauty, at its most magnetic, is not decoration but declaration. On a glitter-polished runway in Brooklyn, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show returned this year not merely as a spectacle, but as a thesis on womanhood, one draped in silk, strengthened by steel, and lit from within by the confidence of a new era.
The room felt charged, not with nostalgia, but with a pointed question: Could this brand truly evolve? In truth, the audience wasn’t just waiting for wings, they were waiting for meaning. And somehow, in the whirl of silk, glitter, and impossible glamour, meaning found us. The show opened not with fantasy, but with truth and, in that instant, it felt like a breath held for years finally released into the room.
The New Angel Archetype: Beauty, Rewritten
Jasmine Tookes appeared, radiant and unapologetic, her gold netted one piece sculpted like liquid moonlight over her body. Her baby bump, visible, celebrated, gloriously present, transformed the iconic Angel wings into something more powerful than aspiration: creation. For decades, Victoria’s Secret sold a dream body forged in gym sweat and discipline. This year, they presented a body that builds worlds.
Enter Angel Reese, a name with destiny baked in, the basketball star whose presence made the runway feel more like a coronation. Six-foot-plus, fierce and fluid, she walked not like a model pretending to be powerful but like a woman whose power is simply the starting point. No shrinking. No softening. And no apologizing for athletic grace. Victoria’s Secret has always loved height. This time, it loved strength.
What followed was not token representation but a tapestry. Neelam Gill moved like silk in motion, pairing delicate lace with regal composure. Paloma Elsesser glowed in velvet and wings that felt sculpted around her presence, not forced onto her body. Sui He floated, impossibly serene, like the kind of East-Asian grace that doesn’t ask for attention but commands it anyway. Adut Akech and Amelia Gray each carried different shades of modern femininity, sensual, assertive, playful, proving that being an “angel” now is less about fitting a fantasy and more about owning your identity within it.
This casting choice wasn’t just inclusive; it was intelligent. Ultimately, the message was clear: The modern angel isn’t singular. She is many forms, many bodies, many victories; reflecting a world the brand had long ignored.
Performances That Melted Into the Runway
Music shaped the show as much as fashion.
TWICE delivered one of the night’s standout segments, performing “This Is For” in soft crystal-studded blush and ivory ensembles, ribbons and pearls echoing the femininity of the runway looks. Their choreography was intentionally minimal with elegant arm lines and delicate steps, allowing the models to weave around them as part of the performance. It felt like a nod to global girlhood and the rise of K-pop’s influence on beauty aesthetics: polished, playful, self-assured.
Later, Karol G electrified the stage in a custom candy-pink latex corset dress and thigh-high boots, performing “LATINA FOREVA.” Her stage presence was magnetic. Hips moving with intention, vocals warm and commanding. Latin pop is shaping global femininity right now, and her appearance made perfect sense: confidence as sensuality, not submission.
Soon after, Madison Beer softened the mood after, stepping out in a pale lavender silk slip dress with silver beading, singing “Make You Mine.” Her vocals felt intimate, pared back, almost cinematic. The lighting dropped to twilight tones. Models walked slower, with a kind of softness that complemented the music rather than competing with it.
This wasn’t filler entertainment between runway moments. Instead, it was a score, a mood board, a cultural language layered into fabric and feathers.
The Politics of Fantasy & Angels
Victoria’s Secret knows its history: the worship, the criticism, the fall, the recalibration — and it is not naïve about its past. A show alone won’t undo years of critique about narrow ideals and commercialized fantasy. However, its comeback wasn’t dramatic shouting or brand-activism slogans. It arrived not trembling with apology but steady with intention. Less “we’ve changed,” more “this is who women are now.” Still glamorous. Still exquisite. But with space for complexity.
The new angel fantasy is not perfection; it is permission. Permission to take up space rather than pose inside someone else’s fantasy. It felt like the brand finally realized that sensuality does not disappear when truth walks into the room. It deepens.
A Final Note on Wings
Old-era wings whispered, you can dream of being her. These wings suggested, you already are her, just step into it. Where angels once floated, this time they walked with weight, history, identity. A woman does not need wings to be an angel, she only needs room to be unapologetically herself. And this time, the room was there — on the stage, yes, but also in the audience’s response.
Glitter fades. Trends transform. But evolution leaves a mark. And this year, Victoria’s Secret 2025 didn’t just chase relevance. It acknowledged reality and made it look beautiful. Not ethereal, not untouchable but human, and radiant precisely because of it.
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