What says “sexy” more than Penn Station? On Tuesday night, I found myself outside the busiest train station in the United States, surrounded by hundreds of people, phones poised above their heads, watching two giant television screens across Seventh Avenue stream the 2024 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. In the distance was the Empire State Building, lit up in pink for the occasion.
The crowd was a strange mix of corporate commuters, tourists with rolling luggage, teens with their moms, teens without their moms, international college students, men in Knicks merch, and a certain kind of New Yorker with a sixth sense for free stuff, no matter how long the line. And boy, were there lines. A line to pose on a pink carpet in front of wings. A line to pose on a pink chairlift in front of a snowy mountain backdrop. A line for goodie bags containing a small body spray. A line to get into an indoor lounge with TVs and free food reserved for members of the Victoria’s Secret rewards program. And the longest line of all, snaking along Seventh Avenue, for a Pink-branded truck serving hot chocolate. I asked a few people which line was for the goodie bag, and the answer always changed.
A fashion friend texted me from Brooklyn, where the runway show was about to begin. “Wish you were here!” I, too, wished to be there. But my request to attend had been politely declined. The reason was clear: I just published a book about the history of Victoria’s Secret, a brand with a fascinating and sometimes sordid past that has been struggling since 2018, when it last staged its famous fashion show. I met more than one reporter in recent weeks who was also denied an invitation. We had all covered the brand’s main scandals, from accusations of harassment of models to a baffling connection with Jeffrey Epstein. No Cher performance for us.
But then I was served a different invitation in the form of an Instagram ad. Victoria’s Secret was hosting a free watch party at the “Penn District,” no RSVP required. When I arrived at 6 p.m. for the 7 p.m. show, music was blasting and the pavilion was already crowded with people trying to understand what was on offer. Jacob’s Pickles had a stand, as did a Pastrami Queen. A few walls were plastered in pink with the brand’s logos and wings. While checking out the chairlift photo op, I met a mother and her preteen daughter from New Jersey who were heading out. Her daughter was a fan of Lisa, the Korean pop star who was performing at the show, and once they realized Lisa wasn’t physically going to be at Penn Station, they bailed. “I can stream this anywhere,” she told me in Spanish. Fair enough.
I wandered around and met another teen, Nicole, there with her mom and friend, Isabella, who were perched on the edge of the pavilion with a perfect view of the big screens waiting for the show to begin. Isabella bought her first body spray at Victoria’s Secret when she was around 10 years old and grew up watching the show. So did Nicole. “It kind of inspired me because I loved the outfits and the colors,” she said, remembering the year when Gisele Bündchen popped out of a giant Christmas present onstage. They were both most excited to see Adriana Lima and were impressed by how good she looked in the backstage pictures on social media. “She looks young!” Isabella said without irony. “I was hoping they would bring back Bella Hadid,” added Nicole. I told her I heard Bella would be there, and they both got excited. Their mom said nothing but filmed us as I interviewed them. Isabella said the show was “iconic.” I said good-bye and kept doing my rounds, meeting another mother and daughter from Germany, some Portuguese college students, and a pair of cute Dutch women in their early 20s who said they were “obsessed” with Victoria’s Secret.
Then it was showtime, and the music got louder as almost everyone’s attention turned toward the screens for the 40-minute show. At first, I thought the audience around me was cheering at every model’s appearance on the runway. But the applause was piped in with the soundtrack. A few people around me did cheer for the performers (Lisa, Tyla, and especially Cher) and the most famous models: Adriana Lima, Gigi and Bella Hadid, Behati Prinsloo, Tyra Banks, and Kate Moss, whose appearance hadn’t been previously announced. No one blinked when Carla Bruni or Eva Herzigová appeared. (Wrong crowd, I guess.) Not everyone was paying attention: I watched a group of young finance bros successfully infiltrate a group of young corporate gals and chat throughout the show. But mostly, people just watched the big screens with quiet bemusement and whipped out their phones whenever a famous model appeared.
I found the new Victoria’s Secret show to be more sophisticated than it was in the kitschy, super-toned, and tanned 2010s — less campy costumes, less cleavage, and fewer mountains of teased extensions. More relaxed, less try-hard. (In tone, at least. Think of how many millions of dollars it took to get all these Angels back together!) But the whole format still felt strangely cold to me — inevitably failing to match the nostalgic thrill of those old shows that loom larger than life for the Nicoles and Isabellas of the world. To me, I didn’t feel quite as momentous as I hoped to see Ashley Graham on that runway, even given the context that she had been rejected years ago because of her size.
After the show, I met three women in their early 20s: Orla, Abby, and Danae, all co-workers who had just moved to New York from Scotland, the U.K., and Ireland to work in finance. They were such Victoria’s Secret fans that they showed up three hours before showtime and queued for an hour to get into the member’s lounge. “Everyone was screaming as soon as Kate Moss came out,” said Orla. “I’m so happy that it’s back; there was no point in stopping it,” said Danae, who was the most unapologetic fan of the three. “They inspire me to keep healthy, exercise, and keep fit and be pretty. You want to be pretty looking at them,” she said. Orla welcomed the new age and body diversity among the models but appreciated that it wasn’t heavily focused on. “It didn’t feel like they were virtue signaling,” she said. “This was a bit more authentic, still Victoria’s Secret, but in a 2024 way.” Abby didn’t want to give the brand too much credit. “I think they are doing the bare minimum with diversity, with the body types, no offense,” she said. “But I like seeing all the old models; I think it was very nostalgic.”
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