VICTORIA'S SECRET ANGELS

Dear readers of sport&beauty. Today’s post is dedicated to the best team ever in history. Having said that, you’ll probably think we’re going to talk about basketball, soccer or Formula One racing. Not at all. Today we’re not talking about sport, we are talking about beauty. The team we’re referring to is composed of the gorgeous and stunning Victoria’s Secret models also known as the Victoria’s Secret Angels. The starting line-up is amazing: Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio, Doutzen Kroes, Marisa Miller, Karolina Kurkova, Isabeli Fontana, and Heidi Klum amongst others. I love Victoria’s Secret Angels and I never miss the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, the greatest show on Earth. When I die I want to go to Victoria’s Secret heaven and be surrounded by such beautiful angels as the Victoria’s Secret Angels.

Let’s talk a bit about the origins of Victoria’s Secret. Victoria’s Secret is a product of masculine shyness. The American lingerie giant was founded in 1977 by Roy Raymond (a student at Stanford Business School) in San Francisco, California. Raymon was usually very ashamed whenever he had to go to a shopping mall to buy lingerie garments for her wife. Roy opened his first lingerie store at Stanford’s shopping mall. Shortly after opening Stanford’s store, he produced a catalogue for mail sale and opened three new stores. Roy’s stores were aimed at creating a comfortable atmosphere for men trying to purchase quality lingerie for their wifes or fiancés by embellishing the stores with wooden walls and Victorian details and employing gentle shop assistants. Instead of the usual shelves with bras and panties of all sizes, Roy placed exclusive lingerie outfits displayed in frames on the walls. This way, men were able to look round the different designs while the shop assistants helped them to estimate the appropriate size. The truth is that I quite like the idea. In 1982 and after five years running the business, Roy Raymond sold Victoria’s Secret to “The Limited” company.

“The Limited” preserved the original Victoria’s Secret brand image and in the 1980,s the lingerie brand started to expand across US shopping malls. The key to Victoria’s Secret success was that they were able to sell a great variety of products such as shoes, evening dresses and perfumes through their mail catalogue which was updated eight times per year. At the beginning of the 1990,s Victoria’s Secret had become the largest American lingerie brand and reached a sales turnout of $ 1 billion. Currently Victoria’s Secret has far more than 1000 lingerie stores across the US. The lingerie giant delivers more than 400 million catalogues per year. If you haven’t got yours yet don’t worry because you can buy online at Victoria’s secret.com. From 2006 Victoria’s Secret catalogues are more environmentally friendly than before for they use a 10% of recycled paper.

Now it’s time to start talking about the gorgeous Victoria’s Secret Angels. Victoria’s Secret gained notoriety in the early 1990,s after starting to sign world class top models for their ad campaigns and commercials. These Angels are the most visible members of Victoria’s Secret team and the spokespersons of the lingerie brand. The Angels made their debut at the fourth Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show held in 1998. Natane Adcock, Tyra Banks, Naomi Campbell, Laetitia Casta, Carrie Salmon, Bridget Hall, Tricia Helfer, Jaime King, Heidi Klum, Karen Mulder, Astrid Muñoz, Chandra North, Daniela Peštová, Rebecca Romijn, Chrystele Saint Louis Augustin, and Stephanie Seymourare were the Angels that participated in the aforementioned event. What does it take to become a Victoria’s Secret Angel? It’s clear that to become one of them it’s not necessary to be good at Maths, History or Chemistry. Candidates must have a statuesque figure and great energy and personality. According to Edward Razek, Victoria’s Secret Angels should be able to entice women as well as men. Shouldn’t these gorgeous models seem attractive to me I would really start getting worried about it.....

Let’s stay in Victoria’s Secret heaven for a while. In May 2007 Victoria’s Secret Angels amongst whom I will highlight Adriana Lima, Selita Ebanks, Alessandra Ambrosio, Izabel Goulart, and Karolina Kurkova were included on the People magazine’s list of the 100 most beautiful persons in the world. The Angels are also amongst the highest paid models in the world with their annual multimillion contracts. Another distinctive feature of Victoria’s Secret is its annual show, the renowned Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. The show that dates back to 1995 has since been considered as the world’s most important lingerie show. In 2000 the show was held in Cannes (France) to help raise funds for the fight against AIDS. In 2001 the Show was first broadcasted on TV by the ABC which was quite controversial for the Federal Communications Commission received lots of complaints. In 2004, and instead of the classic show, Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Gisele Bundchen, Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio were on tour across the US visiting New York, Miami, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles.

It’s during the annual show that Victoria’s Secret unveils their lingerie collections and the legendary and multimillion-dollar worth “Fantasy Bra”. In the 2006 Show, Victoria’s Secret introduced PINK, a brand especially intended for youngsters. From the beginning, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show has turned into a luxurious event featuring elaborated costumed lingerie outfits, and varying music and designs matching the different themes within the Show. The Show is attended by hundreds of celebrities and features special performances each year (Seal, Ricky Martin, Justin Timberlake,….). The Show's most important feature is the giant wings worn by the models as well as other wings of different sizes and shapes (butterfly, peacock, devil,…). In the early years, most of the lingerie outfits presented during the show were not available at Victoria’s Secret stores but from 2005 the Show was especially redesigned to show garments that could be purchased through Victoria’s Secret mail catalogue. I think now we know quite a bit about Victoria’s Secret and Victoria’s Secret Angels. To finish the post I’ll leave some pictures of the last Victoria’s Secret Fashion Shows and a video where you can see Justin Timberlake performing live during the Show. Best regards.