The Victoria’s Secret iconic Fashion show is back! Well, sort of.
On May 10, the contentious fashion brand best known for its dazzling, tightly curated runway shows announced the ‘Victoria’s Secret World Tour.’
A complicated history
The brand’s last televised fashion show ended in December 2018. The dissolution followed a cultural shift that began in 2018 with the launch of Rihanna’s debut Savage Fenty show. The singer’s offering was a more inclusive alternative to Victoria’s Secret’s. As inclusivity became the norm, customers began to veer away from the brand’s narrow definitions of beauty. On the VS runway, models were mostly white women, sporting impossibly slim waists, tight abs, and small frames. Essentially, the brand never hired models above a size 12.
With its runway show now shuttered and the fashion industry facing a reckoning, the Victoria’s Secret brand had to take several steps to rectify its past. The changes included imagining a new path forward for its once toxic practices.
The World Tour show, is described as “a global fashion event, film, and celebration.” The plan is to lead audiences through the behind-the-scenes artistic process and personal narratives of the VS20 group. The collective will include innovative creatives from around the world. The new endeavor is one of Victoria’s Secret’s many steps towards a more inclusive future.
Who will be included?
The VS World Tour show will see women from four different cities, Tokyo, Bogota, London and Lagos. They will all work together to produce and stage a collection, all of which will be captured in a documentary. This inaugural project brings together a number of Black female creatives from across the world, and they are all worth knowing.
Read on to see the list of Black women who are a part of the “Victoria’s Secret World Tour.”
Eloghosa Osunde
Eloghosa Osunde is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist working across film, visual art, text and other mediums. She is the debut author of the critically acclaimed novel “Vagabonds!” Osunde is also the director of TATAFO, a fashion, music and art film based loosely on her debut novel.
Bubu Ogisi
Bubu Ogisi is a Lagos-based fashion designer and founder of IAMSIGO. The highly experimental womenswear fashion brand is dedicated to working with ancient textile forms and processes.
Ashley Okoli
Ashely Okoli is a stylist and one of the pioneers of Lagos’ alternative youth scene.
Ebun Sodipo
Ebun Sodipo is a London-based multidisciplinary artist who “makes work for black trans people of the future.” Guided by black feminist study, with a methodology of collage and fabulation, her work locates and produces real and imaginable narratives of black trans women’s presence, embodiment, and interiority across the past, present, and future.”
Goyo
Goyo is a globally recognized Colombian singer, producer and co-founder of the Grammy Award Winning group ChocQuibTown.
Korty
Korty is a Nigerian Youtube creator and filmmaker leading a new wave of filmmaking within Nigeria’s emerging creative scene.
Wavy The Creator
Wavy The Creator is a multidisciplinary artist. She works across mediums of music and fashion, with her sustainability-focused brand Piece et Patch.
Pheobe Collings-James
Pheobe Collings-James is a British-Jamaican multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, painting and video.