The Debuts Keep Coming! This One Was From Adam Selman at the Victoria’s Secret 2025 Fashion Show
Fashion’s great reset isn’t quite over. With apologies to Chanel, the actual closing slot in this season of change belonged to Adam Selman, who staged his Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show debut last night in Brooklyn, complete with a runway cameo by the WNBA star Angel Reese and performances by Madison Beer, the K-pop group Twice, Karol G, and Missy Elliott.
The Victoria’s Secret’s Fashion Show returned to the runway last October six years after it was canceled to mixed reviews. If the show, which streamed on Prime Video, YouTube, and the company’s own platforms, is as vital to its bottom line as the social media blitz we witnessed in the lead-up yesterday suggests, Selman is a savvy hire. Named SVP and Executive Creative Director of the lingerie leader in April, he formerly helmed VS’s Rihanna-led rival Savage x Fenty, and before that he made stage clothes for a roster of the world’s top performers, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears included, in addition to running his own eponymous label.
Selman’s claim to fame is the naked dress to end all naked dresses, made of 230,000 Swarovski crystals, that Rihanna wore to pick up her Style Icon Award from the CFDA back in 2014. That’s a lot of design cred, but he’s just as well known for his joie de vivre. On Vogue’s Run-Through podcast earlier this week, Selman promised a “less idealized version of sexy and more a range of what that could be: playful, joyful, you know, fun. I wanna see women having fun.”
The first sign this might be a different Victoria’s Secret came when Jasmine Tookes, radiantly pregnant with her second child, emerged in the show’s opening look: a custom gold macramé dress with clam shell pearl and crystal wings, whose details were laid out, like all the rest, in the run-of-show program that was on everyone’s seats. A woman in her third trimester, even one as insanely fit as Tookes, isn’t the kind of body that was welcome on Victoria’s Secret catwalks pre-cancelation.
In a season when more than 97% of models were straight size, Selman’s VS cast stood out for its range of body types. As for a less idealized version of sexy? That’s more debatable. The brand served up social videos of models protein loading and pumping iron in preparation for the big night, and let’s face it, as much as they insist on their subjectivity, with its steadicam close-ups of blown kisses and winks, the Runway Show turns all who walk on it into subjects of objectification. What’s sexy now? The formula is remarkably resilient: it’s still a push-up bra, a thong, black stockings, and stilettos.
That said, there was no denying the sense of fun in the room, or the exuberant razzmatazz Selman and his backstage co-conspirator Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele brought to the assignment, be it in the form of headdresses straight out of The Last Showgirl, the billowing parachute silk trains, or the many, many different interpretations of angel wings (none of which, the program notes took care to point out, used real feathers). Maybe the most remarkable element of the show were the real-girl looks: low-slung jeans or sweats with logo underwear peeking out from the waistbands, worn with cropped tees, faux furs, and sideways baseball caps; a slouchy oversized jean jacket teamed with a bra and panty set; or a sparkly little going-out number that took its cues from Rihanna’s iconic naked dress.
Selman was also responsible for Missy Elliott’s bedazzled black outfit and the inventive costumes worn by her backup dancers. As she holla’d her 2001 megahit “Get Ur Freak On,” the crowd happily obliged.
Photographed by Huy Luong1/69
Photographed by Huy Luong2/69
