Observations (based on what I've seen so far, subject to change
I like the costumes overall, I think that the designer did a great job this year, maybe a few too many tutus, and I am also not crazy about that short in the front-train in the back look but those aren't biggies. HOWEVER I think that the show has overall becoming too costumey.
Note, I liked the costumes a lot and am not one of the ones who thinks that the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show should be lingerie focused, after all Victoria's Secret is no longer strictly a lingerie company, but I think that the costumes and the wings (as much as I liked them) took over and things were out of balance.
Even though Fashion is in the title,
the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is NOT a traditional fashion show and it never has been. Gisele said it best a few years ago when she referred to it as more of a cabaret show, and as such no one element should drive it, it should be a combination of the models with their personalities and struts being on display, the costumes, the performers (if applicable), the music, the dancers (if applicable), the staging and other production values, and the editing when it comes to putting the show together for broadcast.
To elaborate on why I have a problem with the show being too costumey, I think that the costumes and especially the wings got in the way of the model's personalities and struts and therefore undermined some of the models and again led to an imbalance. I may change my mind later after seeing the finished product but that is my impression from the footage I've seen thus far. Now Adriana and Alessandra know how to work big wings and elaborate costumes because they have been doing it for ten years, and the same applies to Doutzen and Miranda who have been doing it for a few years as well. There are also statuesque girls like Erin and Lindsey currently, and Karolina and Oluchi from the past who can deal with those suckers, and Heidi, who was not tall-tall also knew how to handle those things as well, but I don't care how much they excite the girls, there are too many of them and when there are too many of them in a segment, things start to get clunky, and as I mention in a previous post, you start to have a bunch of elaborately dressed pack-mules walking the runway. I suspect that Karlie, after several seasons as Galliano's, and to a lesser extent Gaultier muse, and she was also hooked in McQueen can hit the ground running with the VS spectacle, but that is a rare thing. Personally if I were a model, I would only want them if I were wearing more than one costume, I would want a nice but not too elaborate costume where I can show off my strut and personality and then I would want wings or a crazy outfit. Now I would be tres happy if I were wearing just one outfit and got a cute little pair of (hopefully lightweight) wings. I just read an interview with Karlie, and in it she said not once but twice (so I am pretty sure that it's not a mistake), that she was going to be wearing huge wings in the Kanye segment, however as we now know, she did not wear wings in that segment and yet she is getting a lot of attention for her walk / performance in that segment, so that right there conveys the point that I am trying to make. Don't get me wrong, over-the-top costumes and massive wings have become part and parcel of the VSFS, and it was done very, very well this year, but IMO it needs to be scaled because the best show is the one where all of the elements get to shine.
Add me to the "I thought the music sucked" bandwagon. From what I saw no individual song was bad except for the
Secrets song for the
I Put A Spell On You but the overall portfolio was not right, the only high, high energy song was Nicki Minaj's
SuperBass for the closing, and some of the others were energetic like Maroon 5's
Moves Like Jagger, Kanye's song and the show opener, but there needed to be another high, high energy song or some kind of majestic song like the one from last year's
Wild Things segment or a crazy throwback like the song for 2007's
Surreally Sexy segment. Again they muffed the
I Put A Spell On You segment big time with the music, I am not crazy about the Rihanna song but there is usually a mellow song and I think that song fit into that slot quite well.
My prediction is that the editing plus the models, the costumes and the popularity of either the songs or the people performing the songs will make up for the fact that the overall music portfolio was lacking this year, and there was some good stuff there - from what I saw Kanye interacted well with the models, and the little thing with Adam and Anne was tres cute. However I don't think that editing is going to save
I Put A Spell On You from being a dud, which is a pity because it was a nice theme with a good cast and costumes, and even doing a lot of shots to models dancing backstage won't save it because the song is not uptempo. I doubt if it is worth it from a cost and effort standpoint but if I was VS I would at least mull over calling the models back in and re-shoot the segment with a different song - I dunno perhaps they can accompany that segment with one those nervous new model(s) / idolizing the veterans / rush to get on stage vignettes.