A flock of celestial beings flew across the Atlantic Ocean this past week to spread their benevolent message of happiness, good health and the wonders of a well-fitting bra.
All praise the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show! After several years in New York, the brand took its annual event (now televised for 13 years) to the lingerie congregants of London. While 47 models will be strutting their stuff when the show airs Tuesday on CBS, only eight lucky ladies serve as Angels year-round.
“There are very few special things you can achieve as a model,” says Jan Planit, who headed up top agency IMG from 1991 to 2001 and now runs Planit Model Management. “Getting your Angel wings is the ultimate.”
Gaining entry into this select sorority — which counts Gisele Bündchen, Heidi Klum and Tyra Banks among its bombshell ranks — is like getting canonized. Those chosen to be full-time Angels are rewarded with lucrative contracts, coveted by Hollywood and rock ’n’ roll’s leading men, and given exposure that can catapult their careers into another stratosphere. What other fashion show is watched by 9 million people?
The current crop — Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima, Elsa Hosk, Behati Prinsloo, Lily Aldridge, Doutzen Kroes, Karlie Kloss and Candice Swanepoel — is, of course, genetically blessed. But they also have to appeal to both men and women, because when the curtain falls on the show, the Angels aren’t just selling a fantasy. They are selling bras and panties.
Photographer Nigel Barker, who worked with one of the original Angels, Tyra Banks, on “America’s Next Top Model,” tells The Post that, in the beginning, the concept of the Angels was unique because it took high-fashion girls and turned them mainstream — the opposite of most models’ aspirations at the time.
“When Victoria’s Secret created the Angels [in 1998], it was women who were some of the biggest fashion models out there. You hadn’t seen them in [ads for] high-street stores,” he says.
“It gave this very commercial brand a high-fashion gloss. It also put a lot of these girls on the map. The average Joe isn’t picking up Vogue! But [these models] would walk down the street and people would scream out their names.”
It is, he says, “bankable.”
Indeed, of the models named 2014’s top earners by Forbes, the top spots are held by Angels. Bündchen, who “retired” from celestial duties in 2007, heads the list at $47 million. Current Angels Kroes and Lima share No. 2, earning $8 million each.
Forbes has reported that the brand gives Angels advice on publicists, business managers and financial advisors. Chief marketing officer Ed Razak plays god. He declined to be interviewed, but experts say he’s looking for approachable models.
“These girls have to sell underwear. [Victoria’s Secret] puts them in a catalog, people order, and the company knows [which model] is wearing what, and what sells and what doesn’t,” says Barker.So while men may love the runway show, it’s female consumers who influence who are the most powerful Angels. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that many of the current models — Lima, Ambrosio, Kroes, Aldridge — are mothers, and often photographed by the paparazzi with their kids. No crazy Cara Delevingne antics for these ladies.“The notion of girls partying at night and showing up late … you won’t see it, period,” Razek told Forbes. “We won’t deal with divas.”
“There’s definitely a morality clause,” adds Planit. “They come with any big contract.”
While Barker hasn’t seen any of the Angels’ contracts, he agrees that such a clause would be par for the course. “It’s tough if you’re in your early 20s and making a fortune. It’s not always easy to be focused.”
One thing the Angels are intensely focused on? Their workout routines.
“They’re serious about their bodies, skin and hair,” says Mary Helen Bowers, who trains Swanepoel, Aldridge, Kloss and Ambrosio with her Ballet Beautiful method.
Normally, they train with Bowers four times a week. In the weeks leading up to the televised show, though, the models step up their workouts to two hours a day, five or six days a week. Many of the girls also train with Justin Gelband, who owns the ModelFit gym on the Bowery.
Bowers insists that the Angels aren’t striving for a certain size or weight. “Their bodies are a little more voluptuous than your typical waify runway model.”
Barker speculates that the models are contractually obligated to show a healthy lifestyle on social media, which is why you see so many Instagram shots of them working out. (The Angels have a combined 17.5 million followers.)
Instagram also gives clues as to which Angels hang out together — Aldridge and Kloss; Lima and Ambrosio. From palling around on their jet to backstage primping, the entire London trip was documented on social media in a way that made it look like one big slumber party.
Barker bets that was crafted with women in mind. “It’s ‘Sex and the City’ with underwear,” he says.
It also may have been a last hurrah. This was reportedly the last year for Ambrosio and Lima — the latter has been with VS for 14 years, which is longer than some models’ entire careers. But, as Planit says, “You’re known by those wings forever.”