The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is an annual fashion show sponsored by Victoria's Secret, a brand of lingerie and sleepwear. Victoria's Secret uses the show to promote and market its goods in high-profile settings. The show features some of the world's leading fashion models such as current Victoria's Secret Angels Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio, Doutzen Kroes, Behati Prinsloo, Candice Swanepoel, Erin Heatherton, Lily Aldridge, and Lindsay Ellingson.American network television broadcasts the show during prime time. The first few shows in the 1990s were held in the days preceding Valentine's Day to promote the brand for this holiday. They were not aired on national television. In 1999 and 2000 the show was webcast. Beginning in 2001, the shows were moved ahead of the Christmas holiday season. Also in 2001, the show made its network television broadcast on ABC, though in all subsequent years, it has been broadcast on CBS. The show has been held at a variety of locations in different cities including Miami, Los Angeles, and Cannes. The first four shows were held at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, but since it has become a televised event it has most often been held at the Lexington Avenue Armory in New York City.The show is a lavish event with elaborate costumed lingerie, varying music by leading entertainers, and set design according to the different themes running within the show. The show attracts hundreds of celebrities and entertainers, with special performers and acts every year. Each year, twenty to forty of the world's top fashion models are selected to perform in the fashion show. In a typical year, this includes about a half dozen women under contract to the company, known as Victoria's Secret Angels, who help publicize the event. The giant angel wings worn by the models, as well as other wings of various forms and sizes such as butterfly, peacock, or devil wings, have become emblematic of the Victoria's Secret brand.The first fashion show extravaganza, introduced by Stephanie Seymour, was held at the Plaza Hotel in New York City in August 1995. The show also featured Beverly Peele and Frederique van der Wal.This first fashion show occurred two months before The Limited, parent company of Victoria's Secret owner Intimate Brands, sold an initial public offering of a 16 percent stake in the company and almost had Seymour make an appearance at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for the opening bell. She actually did ring the closing bell at the NYSE as part of the publicity campaign. The subsequent three annual shows were also held at the Plaza.
In 1999, during Super Bowl XXXIII, Victoria's Secret announced a 72-hour countdown to the Internet webcast of the Victoria's Secret fashion show, which resulted in over 2 million internet viewers of the show. Parent company Intimate Brands bought a $1.5 million ($2.1 million today) 30-second television advertisement during the Super Bowl broadcast and spent an additional $4 million ($5.5 million) for subsequent international newspaper advertisements to publicize the event.The show, which was aired by Broadcast.com, featured Tyra Banks, Laetitia Casta, Heidi Klum, Karen Mulder, Daniela Pestova, Inés Rivero, and Seymour. In 1999 and 2000, the show was broadcast live on the internet, but the 2000 show was moved for a year from the usual February event at the Plaza to a May event in concert with the Cannes Film Festival in France to raise money for the Cinema Against AIDS charity; it raised $3.5 million.In 2001, the show, which was hosted by Rupert Everett, returned to the New York City but at Bryant Park instead of the Plaza. That year, the show made its broadcast debut on ABC, drawing millions of viewers as well as some middle-brow controversy; the Federal Communications Commission received many complaints about the broadcast every year. The show has continued to be broadcast on network television every year since.
From 2002 through 2005, it was held at the Lexington Avenue Armory in New York City.[The 2004 show was canceled due to a widespread crackdown on perceived indecency in broadcasting stemming from the Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy, in which Jackson encountered a breast-revealing "wardrobe malfunction". Before the 2005 show, Banks announced her retirement from modeling and embarkation on a television career with The Tyra Banks Show, making the 2005 show a farewell to her decade of fashion shows for the company.
In 2004, instead of the annual fashion show, the Angels (Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Gisele Bündchen, Adriana Lima, and Alessandra Ambrosio) did an Angels Across America
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