Gabriella Karefa-Johnson on her love of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show

Karolína Kurková in a flight attendant outfit.

The runway portion of the show was often divided into themes, reflected in the truly ridiculous costuming (Kurková was dressed as a busty flight attendant in the aforementioned Shoe Gate episode), and each segment was accompanied by live musical performances. There were few experiences in my youth that caused such utter hysteria as when Tyra Banks stormed the runway at the 2003 show to NERD’s “Rockstar,” which had been remixed specifically for the show. The hair was blonde. The waves were deep. The eye was smoky. The bra was blinded. And the tiara was in place Exactly where it should be: on our Queen Mother’s head.

It was fabulous. And I was fabulous. And something about my ability to recognize the majority confirmed my outsized self-esteem at the time. These were my people. That was part of me. Even then, in my Hot Topic tights, thousands of miles from the broadcast in New York City, I knew this was the place I was meant to be. From diva to diva, a kill is a kill.

Tyra Banks walks the runway at the 2003 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

While my friends spent that precious hour somewhere near the Hot Dog on a Stick at our local food court, I took off my Converses and prepared to leave everything on the living room floor.

“3… 2… 1…” I heard over a walkie-talkie, “Come on, Adriana.”

In today’s hypervigilant climate, it seems impossible that a young, chubby black girl would have felt anything other than self-loathing and shameful rejection while watching the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Still, something about the angels suggested possibility to me. They offered an escape. It’s not that I thought they were perfect, but the world they lived in was a kind of paradise that I could see with my eyes closed. If I could feel that magic, then that was proof enough that the magic was indeed mine. And while I clung to daydreams of discovery in class, the walls of my mind were covered with the hippie cross-legged walk that Banks had made famous—the one I practiced while crossing the street and between classes. I honestly believed that all I needed to fly was a pair of wings.

Tyra, Heidi, Gisele and Adriana – they were my superheroes. And maybe that was due to the clever corporate design. Back then, Victoria’s Secret spent billions to hire Michael Bay to direct its seasonal commercials, and it showed. Any of these TV spots would be right at home there Transformers cinematic universe; To be honest, they could live comfortably in any number of action movie franchises. There was drama, there was intrigue, there was smoke and mirrors (literally!), crisp white sheets blowing in a mega-knot wind whose source was unknown. There were 100 cameras capturing 2,000 angles of the same pair of mile-long legs, and for some reason, even though that fantasy couldn’t be further from my reality – even though those incredibly long legs would never be mine – I didn’t feel it reduced or excluded. I was wild with ambition.

Paloma Elsesser at Victoria’s Secrets The Tour ’23.

It’s hard for me to remember those days. Sometimes I wonder if the negative impact of sitting five inches in front of a monitor, projecting inadequacy onto my psyche, was perhaps so subtle that I never fully realized the toll it was taking. When I look back on my obsession with Victoria’s Secret, it’s as if the memory lives behind a façade of frosted glass – I can see the shape and size of the trauma, but it is undefined and unclear. I know it’s there, but the integrity of the container convinces me it will never break through. Maybe time has just washed away the stains of insecurity, maybe practicing radical self-love was the balm I needed, and the shame of once following the supremacy of “white, thin” subjects is gone forever. It’s not lost on me that Victoria’s Secret, especially in its early days, was not intended to be a friendly place for women with bodies like mine.

Still, the fact remains, whether truth or illusion, that being curvy and seeing women so confident in their sensuality was powerful and desirable. At the ripe age of 12, this was very close to what I wanted to feel.

Even now, as I prepare to be a guest at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, I get butterflies. Not because these angels I have always adored are now friends and colleagues, some even inhabiting bodies that look much more like mine. Not even because baby Gaby made it into those once-impossible spaces, but because I know that watching Banks’ first runway run live will take me back to 2003.

I’ll be in my childhood home, bursting at the seams with dreams and endless possibilities, rabid with wild obsession, illegally downloading “Rockstar” on Napster while strutting back and forth with more attitude than I know what to do with. Life will be good. It’s an unrepeatable climax, and I’ll follow it to the end of Earth’s last runway.

Gabriella Karefa-Johnson is a New York-based stylist and fashion editor. Her approach is largely narrative and focuses on diversifying representation across the high fashion landscape. Earlier fashionAs Global Contributing Fashion Editor-at-Large, she was the first black woman to wear a style fashion Cover in 2021 with Paloma Elsesser. Karefa-Johnson has styled numerous iconic worlds fashion Covers, including the September issue announcing the retirements of Serena Williams, Margot Robbie, Bella Hadid and Olivia Wilde. She has also contributed to publications such as Perfect, New editionAnd The Wall Street Journal. She previously worked as a fashion director garage. In addition to her editorial work, Karefa-Johnson works with like-minded commercial clients such as Nike, Etro, Miu Miu, Calvin Klein and Armani to expand and elevate the scope of representation.