Jane Zhang at Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show: a Supergirl among the Supermodels

[read italian version]

Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, like saying the “fashion show” par excellence.

Every year the most anticipated international fashion show is presented in a different location, renewing itself from time to time regarding the organization but remaining faithful to some of the key features:

The world’s greatest fashion show

Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show 2017 – Shanghai

Lingerie and sleepware, the fashion show is focused on it, and all the piece of clothing that belong to it are from the famous Victoria’s Secret brand, the event organizer.
The Supermodels parade themselve on the runway and being chosen, during a casting phase, among the most famous top-models in the globe. Some of them, especially fortunate, come join of the small group of “Victoria’s Secret Angels“.
The colorful and extravagant “wings” (or something similar) of which the girls are ornamented to the “completion” of their clothing, seemed to be, by a strange sense of decency, to divert attention from the lingerie and the Venuses who wear them. And it’s from these wings that the models take the nickname “Angels“.
The location, every year more and more cool and gorgeous to produce a show whose impact on the public is getting stronger than the previous year.
Awesome music guests who perform while the models walk through the runway and assure at the event the joint interest of both the fashion world and that of the show.

The great show organizing machine of Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show

It’s a mind-boggling organization for the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, whose less visible part is months of model casting, fashion collection preparation, the choice of performers among the coolest singers of the moment and for the rehearsal of the show, because it’s a real show and not just a simple fashion event. A great mechanism made by hundreds of people who work every year to bear fruit in terms of advertising to the brand that organizes it.

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Jane Zhang

Guests of the previous editions

The feature that makes Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show unique of its kind is the marriage of fashion and music. The show for a few years offers millions of viewers who follow the fantastic performances of famous music and entertainment stars. Among the jewels in the crown of past editions we have Sting, Mary J. Blige, Eve, Justin Timberlake, Will.I.Am, Usher, Katy Perry, Kanye West, Jay Z, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars.

The performers in this edition

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Jane Zhang

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Harry Styles

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Miguel

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Leslie Odom Jr.

Yundi Li

This year they performed at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show on November 20th, the mega-pop star Jane Zhang, Harry Styles, ex-One Direction, Miguel, a US musician and songwriter whose vocals are many compared to Prince and Leslie Odom Jr., singer and actor of cinema, musicals in Broadway and interpreter of famous American television series. A pearl is also the presence of the 35 year-old classical pianist Yundi Li (李云迪) that in 2000, at age 18, he won the Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw, thus becoming the youngest winner in history and the only Chinese nationals. During the show the maestro accompanied both Miguel and Leslie Odom Jr. to the piano.

Shanghai 2017

The location selected for this show was Shanghai: this is the first time ever that the event is not organized in the USA or Europe. Previous editions have seen the light of day in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Cannes and Paris. The show was set up at the famous Mercedes Benz Arena, which from the outside looks like a giant ufo, and where Jane is practically home, having been there several times in the past. 3,000 spectators stood in line for hours before entering the arena and entrance tickets are said to have arrived to cost $ 53,000 on the “black market” in the last hours that preceded the show.

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Mercedes Benz Arena

The first Chinese performer in VSFS history

Jane Zhang is the only Chinese artist ever to appear on stage at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. The audience was eagerly awaiting his performance and is literally crazy when Jane appeared on stage. The idol of Asian pop began with a “taste” of the new single in English language “Work For It“. They were 60 seconds of amazement in the audience who listened for the first time this song has something hypnotic (listen to it and you’ll understand).

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Performers

Work For It ? Simply hot !

The song is about the sexual tension between a man and a woman: “[…] Shock my body. Light up the fire. Can you ignite it? […] I want you on me. Show me why you want it. […] You keep sending me signals. […] My body’s talking without words […] But I’ma make you work for it.”
Wow ! Probably the hottest song that Jane had ever sung !

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Jane Zhang

Jane climbs to the US iTunes charts

The preview of the new single has anticipated a few hours the official release on online music stores all over the world. The song will be part of the next English language album that Jane announced for some time and that it was entirely developed with the collaboration of Timbaland, the famous American rapper now successful music producer. In the hours following its publication “Work For It” entered the Top 10 ranking of the US iTunes downloads, immediately followed by another Jane’s song, “808 (Jack Novak Remix)“, which is also in the medley presented VSFS.

Guys, if “Work For It” is hypnotic, “808” would call it “overwhelming” !

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Jane Zhang

Judging by the US iTunes charts, Jane Zhang is the real winner of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show this year, in fact none of the other performers of the evening boasts a song within the Top 100.

Miguel is only in position #118 with the song “Sky Walker“, “Kiwi” by Harry Styles is at #168 and “Winter Song” by Leslie Odom Jr. is at #423.

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Performers

The third piece in the medley was “Dust My Shoulders Off” which is the first of the songs featuring his English album. DMSO, released on October 14 last year, and also carried out in collaboration with Timbaland, entered forcefully into the Top 5 of the US iTunes, reaching the position #4.

In practice, history repeats itself, and if just taking part in a show to have such an effect on the American music charts then it means that Jane may have the States at his feet!

The breathtaking performance and the sexy look of Jane Zhang

During Jane’s performance was accompanied, as frequently happens, by his dance troup and it generated an overwhelming show especially during the song 808.
Usually when Jane mentions a dance step the audience goes into a frenzy and that’s what also happened the other night, then if you add to this her breathtaking clothing she wore for the occasion, how to retain the enthusiasm viewers?

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Jane Zhang’s dress

The Dolphin Princess occurred on stage sexier than ever, wearing an open jacket and pants Diamond Dazzle spring / summer 2018 collection that ensured a certain sexy transparency. Under the jacket just one of Victoria’s Secret PINK line of sports bra. The black/silver Christian Louboutin shoes model Crystal Queen had the unmistakable red sole and a stiletto heel dizzying but Jane can handle well even managing to dance. I just don’t know how to do it ! What about hairstyle ? I’m used to seeing Jane almost always with straight or slightly wavy hair, so admiring her with a curly hair really made my heart jump !

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Jane Zhang

The Supermodels leave free the runway for Jane

Therefore the performance of Jane Zhang began with 60 seconds without the models and ended so that Jane had the stage again for herself to make a piece of runway like a supermodel. Jane’s fans really liked this idea of the producer/director of the show Hamish Hamilton.

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Jane Zhang

Hamish Hamilton had worked with Jane in June 2016, also in Shanghai, on the occasion of the Grand Opening Celebration dello Shanghai Disney Resort, he was its director and Jane one of three performers selected for the extraordinary event. In this video we can see him, and listen to her, while goofing in the backstage 15 minutes from the beginning of the show.

Hamish is one of the most acclaimed international directors and has directed some of the greatest shows ever staged in the world. Here his show reel that is worth watching.

The history of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show

The VSFS machine starts for the first time in August 1995 at the Hotel Plaza in New York, in the 1999 and 2000 editions the live broadcast of the event was introduced and in 2001 the show debuted on the network American television ABC. Subsequently, in 2004, instead of the usual show never aired that year for reasons as yet unknown, the “Angels” Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Gisele Bündchen, Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio were the protagonists of the “Angels Across America Tour” which brought the brand around the US touching New York, Miami, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. From 2010 to now the show is broadcast, delayed by about a week, the American CBS TV via cable and simultaneously via streaming on the Internet. Last year the biggest fashion show on the planet was organized in Paris to witness the solidarity of the fashion world to the city unfortunately hit by more terrorist attacks in recent years.

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Jane Zhang

The myth of the Fantasy Bra

It was 1996 when Victoria’s Secret presented the “Fantasy Bra” which on that occasion was called “Million Dollar Miracle Bra“. In that edition Claudia Shiffer wore it that, during a photo shoot realized in Monaco, was put under armed escort, so much was the agitation of the crowd that was created around the supermodel. Since 2001, every year, in view of the show, is engaged a goldsmith who designs and prepares the most expensive bra in the world and one of the supermodel wearing it during the show. The model created this year received the name “Champagne Nights Fantasy Bra“, worth $ 2 million and the model chosen to show it to the world was Lais Ribeiro, 27 year-old Brazilian with perfect curves.

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Champagne Nights Fantasy Bra

The podium for the most precious Fantasy Bra in history goes instead to the “Red Hot Fantasy Bra/Panties“, a set of lingerie appeared in the year 2000 and worn by the Brazilian Gisele Bündchen: it was worth the stratospheric price of 15 million dollars.

VSFS Red Hot Fantasy Bra/Panties

Just the 2000 edition aired live from the Cannes Film Festival and glued the whole America to the screens during the day (due to the time zone). It seems that the then Secretary of the US Treasury estimated the resulting loss of productivity of the nation in a billion dollars.

Katy Perry and Gigi Hadid excluded from the show

However, a few non-trivial problems have overshadowed the wonderful setting of Shanghai. Katy Perry and Supermodel Gigi Hadid were both excluded from the show because they were not granted an entry visa by the Chinese government.

Perry is accused of wearing, in 2015, during a concert in Taipei (Taiwan), a dress depicting sunflowers. The Beijing authorities have interpreted it as a gesture of support for the Taiwanese protesters who the year before had used this flower as a symbol of their student protest against a series of trade agreements that their country had closely with China.

Katy Perry

Different motivation but the same result for the supermodel Gigi Hadid labeled as a racist after the spread of a video on Instagram that portrayed her while imitating a biscuit in the shape of a Buddha trying to simulate a cut of typical Chinese eyes.

Why Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in China?

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Supermodels and Performers

All this media attention to the positive and negative events that have characterized this edition is exactly what the American company was looking for. The parent company of VS, “L Brands Inc.” aims to invade the Chinese market with its own clothing and fashion accessories. A fast growing market as the American one is in obvious decline. “China is our number one priority“, said Martin Waters, CEO of international operations at L Brands, Inc. The first Victoria’s Secret store was inaugurated earlier this year in Shanghai and the company has already planned the opening of two other stores, one in Beijing and another in Hong Kong, and plans to have a total of 18 by the end of next year. Together with the VS branded fashion accessories, perfume and cosmetics stores, they will bring the brand to an annual turnover of $ 400 million.

The Supermodel in Shanghai 2017

Fashion fans have once again been able to admire a selection of the most beautiful and paid Supermodels in the world. Here are some names: Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio, Candice Swanepoel, Lily Aldridge, Lais Ribeiro, Sara Sampaio, Josephine Skriver, Stella Maxwell.
Among the models also some very famous names in China as Liu Wen, who in 2009 was the first model of Asian origin to take part in the show and Ming Xi.
17 did debutantes girls at VSFS, for a total of 55 beauties Therefore, many heads of stunning lingerie, all the extravagances to which Victoria’s Secret has accustomed us in his show and especially the presence of Jane Zhang.

OMG, what a show!

Enjoy it in the videos below. The last video is the full video of the show lasting 42 minutes with subtitles in both English and in Chinese: all the artists’ performances, presentations, models and more. Enjoy it!

VSFS 2017 Shanghai – Supermodels

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