| EVENT REPORT 11.17.05 12:00 AM |
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| Victoria’s Secret Show Is Sexy Spectacle |
| The lingerie retailer’s holiday fashion show featured top models, a vaguely Russian theme, and plenty of entertainment. |
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| Lingerie purveyor Victoria’s Secret is good at creating elaborate fantasies attached to its name. (How else would it get away with the $5 price tag on its catalogs?) Its not-quite-annual holiday show—taped in November for a December 6 broadcast on CBS—is arguably the retailer’s biggest fantasy of them all. After it was canceled last year in the wake of Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl scandal, the show returned this year at the New York State Armory, with top models Tyra Banks, Gisele Bündchen, and Heidi Klum all on the roster. Victoria’s Secret’s Edward Razek, Monica Mitro, Ian Stewart, and Hamish Hamilton served as executive producers. |
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PHOTO GALLERY |
 | | Victoria’s Secret’s fashion show at the 69th Regiment Armory was a flawless production, with models strutting on a Swarovski crystal-covered runway jutting out from a lazy Susan-like stage flanked by massive teddy bears. |
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 | | Burlesquer Dita von Teese performed a striptease behind a screen that magnified her into a larger-than-life silhouette. |
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 | | Singer Seal emerged from the giant ornament to serenade the crowd. |
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 | | At the after-party, the walls were lined in black velvet painted with sponsor Imperia's logos and sketches of sexy women, glowing in shades of neon under black lights. |
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After guests found their pink or silver seats (which took longer for some, after a printer intended to create photo ID tags for backstage press malfunctioned), jazz trumpeter Chris Botti took to the Swarovski-encrusted runway for a short performance. Then the models emerged from backstage to strut their goods in a 20-minute high-energy explosion of marabou, wings, and silky underthings. The stage was constructed like a lazy Susan, with a forest of towering candy canes, Christmas ornaments, and oversize gift boxes all set up on a circular, rotating platform flanked by massive pink teddy bears.
Singer Seal—better known these days for siring Klum's baby—emerged from a giant mirrored ornament to serenade the crowd, and blow a kiss to his wife as she passed in light-up skivvies. Another cool touch: Burlesquer Dita von Teese performed a striptease act behind a fabric screen that magnified her image into a larger-than-life silhouette at the rear of the stage. Ricky Martin performed briefly on the runway, too, amid a troupe of lingerie-clad backup dancers. Before the supermodels came out for their final walk, an all-male drumline from Rutgers University lined the stage and played while models in majorette-inspired lingerie danced.
In addition to the obvious themes—sex, holidays, more sex—this year’s look was a wintry Russian one, with some of the outfits reminiscent of toy soldiers from The Nutcracker ballet. The Russian theme carried over into the after-party—held around the perimeter of the Armory—sponsored by Russian vodka Imperia (which just launched in the U.S. with a lavish party on Liberty Island). The walls were lined in black velvet painted with Imperia logos and sketches of sexy women, glowing in shades of neon under the purplish glow of black lights. Scenes from the just-happened show ran on a screen behind an ice bar from Ice Fantasies. And model servers from Metropolitan Hospitality—wearing Russian-esque lingerie and boots—offered Russian food from Abigail Kirsch, like beef stroganoff, pierogies, and copious caviar.
—Alesandra Dubin
Photos: Timothy A. Clary/Getty Images (Seal), Bryan Bedder/Getty Images (runway)
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