Taking the helm as the first executive creative director of Victoria’s Secret, Adam Selman is facing what many consider an impossible task: reviving a cultural behemoth that has lost its footing. Selman, a designer renowned for his sophisticated yet cheeky aesthetic—and a veteran of Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty—is surprisingly calm amidst the showroom chaos just a week before his debut runway show. He readily admits to the intense pressure, but his optimism and focus are palpable. His strategy is clear: strip away the gimmicks, put aside the over-serious facade, and lean into fun, joy, and, most crucially, authenticity. By focusing on bespoke design for each model and leveraging the brand’s storied heritage, Selman aims to reconnect Victoria’s Secret with a modern audience that demands honest storytelling and a genuinely inclusive vision.
A Designer’s Cheeky Pedigree Meets a Corporate Challenge
Adam Selman’s professional history—spanning his own labels, designing iconic celebrity looks, and his time with Savage x Fenty—positions him uniquely to tackle the complex cultural and commercial demands now facing Victoria’s Secret.
Selman’s design DNA is best summarized as sophisticated but cheeky. His eponymous label featured bold, playful pieces like denim embroidered with garter belts and sheer sequined jackets. He has an established history of shaping the public image of megastars, notably dressing Rihanna in her iconic crystal naked dress for the 2014 CFDA Awards and creating looks for Beyoncé and Lady Gaga. More than just a skilled creative trained in technical fabrics, Selman is one of the few American designers who truly understands how to cultivate fashion relevancy within the modern zeitgeist. He knows how to connect celebrity culture with underlying ideas and, critically, how to communicate those ideas to the consumer. For Victoria’s Secret, a brand that has struggled with authenticity and a dated aesthetic, his ability to inject fashion relevancy and joyous energy is his greatest asset.
The Bespoke Approach to Authentic Inclusivity
Recognizing that Victoria’s Secret has historically struggled with buzzwords like “authenticity” and “community,” Selman is employing a hands-on, almost couture-like approach to design for his debut show, ensuring that inclusivity is built into the clothes themselves.
Selman’s new strategy centers on making the show and campaigns “more joyful and fun and bring people in.” He is eschewing the generic fit model in favor of designing each look around a specific personality, featuring models like Alex Consani, Imaan Hammam, Joan Smalls, and Paloma Elsesser. Though not strictly couture, Selman calls it a “more elevated approach to the building of it so it has a more polished edge.” This process involves genuine dialogue with the models, ensuring that the look feels “bespoke to them,” reflecting what they feel most comfortable and confident wearing. This collaborative exchange is designed to make the entire presentation feel more honest and real to a younger audience that can easily detect corporate posturing.
From Gimmicks to Archetypes: Reimagining Show Thematics
Selman is determined to move Victoria’s Secret away from its past reliance on literal, often silly, costume-based themes, opting instead for a more nuanced, essence-based approach to storytelling that draws from the brand’s deep heritage.
Past runway shows frequently dressed models as literal candy canes or sexy cab drivers, an approach Selman found “a little serious” in its commitment to simple fantasy. He has overhauled this thematic structure by dividing the show into archetypes of a woman based on the brand’s most famous fragrances, such as the First Light section, the Bombshell section, and the Black Tie section. This shift is about capturing the essence of a person—the mood, the personality—rather than dressing her up as an inanimate object or a character from a fantasy land. This allows Selman to tell “deeper stories within the brand,” utilizing the brand’s vast archives and historical catalogue much like a designer taking over a high-fashion house.
Subtlety in the Digital Age: Easter Eggs and Speed
Despite being tasked with reviving a mega-brand in the age of screen consumption, Selman’s strategy is rooted in analog research and a shrewd understanding of digital culture’s attention span. His approach blends nostalgic reverence with rapid-fire pacing.
Selman deliberately avoided over-reliance on digital inspiration, instead poring over old Victoria’s Secret catalogs and physical runway images—the primary way the brand communicated its story to its original audience. This focus on the archives allows him to plant “Easter eggs” throughout the designs and campaign shoots—subtle nods and recreations of former looks that he believes the brand’s “ravenous fans” will discover and share, thus fueling organic discussion. Concurrently, he recognizes the demands of the modern viewer. His approach to the show’s pacing is designed to be “fast.” He wants the audience to feel a feast for the eyes, not knowing where to look, acknowledging that this frenetic pace reflects “the pace of culture” and will keep the show relevant in an era of rapid-fire content consumption.
The Featherless Wings and the Power of Joy
The ultimate goal for Adam Selman is to bring pure joy and fun back to Victoria’s Secret, but his commitment to ethical standards—even in the iconic wings—underscores his intent to communicate that joy in a way that feels responsible and real.
The famous Victoria’s Secret wings will, of course, remain, but with a notable ethical difference: “We’re not using feathers,” Selman confirms. This decision introduces a significant design challenge—finding a material as weightless as a feather—but is based on the simple philosophy that “nothing is more beautiful than not having to kill a bird.” This subtle but important change reflects a commitment to modern ethical expectations. Selman believes lingerie has a “true power to transform” a wearer’s mood, offering illusion that can transform into real confidence. Ultimately, he hopes to avoid the “silly place” that fashion joy often lands in, instead keeping the brand grounded: “At the end of the day, it’s bras and panties. I would hope you’re laughing and having a good time in bras and panties.”
