One of my favorite authors, Rainbow Rowell, wrote about one of her characters: “She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.” When considering the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, I thought of this. The Angels look nice in a way that most never will. Let us not forget on December 8 that the Angel’s are art and what Victoria’s Secret really wants us to feel the need to buy.
I will not condemn Victoria’s Secret for this. Their underwear and bras are just as beautiful as the women who wear them. The fashion show is more than a marketing ploy too, it’s a cultural event. This is the one time a year when American women should escape their own insecurities and appreciate the Victoria’s Secret Angels as works of art. That might truly be objectification of women, but in the best way possible. They aren’t objects of sexual affection--it’s mostly women who watch the show, after all. They are objects of fixation, much like the Mona Lisa (who roughly 6 million people travel to the Louvre to see each year) or Warhol’s Marilyn prints. People like to look at beautiful things and when someone’s beauty transcends an attainable level, it becomes so distant from us that it is art. They are no longer people; they are angels. .
More so than the Angels themselves, I appreciate the lingerie, as bizarre as that may sound. And I imagine that wearing the $2 million bra could make anyone feel special. What Victoria’s Secret accomplishes is making women feel beautiful when all the circumstances suggest that they shouldn’t. Watching Candace Swaenpoel walk down a runway wearing Angel wings, realizing not only will I never walk down any runway, but I could never look like her. And watching her should make me feel bad about myself, but it does just the opposite because every time I go into Victoria’s Secret and I try something on, I too feel special for a minute. Inside the fitting room, all on my own, I can feel like a Victoria’s Secret Angel. I don’t need Taylor Swift singing and I don’t need the Jenner sisters beside me; all I need is a little bit of lace and sparkle and I feel like a million (or shall I say two) bucks.
So, if you choose to tune into the Victoria’s Secret fashion show this December, I hope you feel as I do. You are not Adriana Lima, but that does not mean you cannot feel special for just a minute. The beautiful bras and underwear, after all, are not for men (they don’t care), it’s for you. Even if you’re the only one who will see it, be an Angel. Be a work of art and make people, including yourself, feel something. And if you can make someone feel special, well that’s all Angel can do too.
