Angel Reese learned how to ‘walk’ to make Victoria’s Secret fashion show history
Angel Reese sat in the front row of last year’s Victoria’s Secret show. This year she found herself on that famous catwalk, confidently strutting in silver Italian sandal heels wearing wings on her back.
You need wings to fly as high as she did Wednesday night. A modeling coach helps, too.
The 6-foot-3 WNBA star made Victoria’ s Secret history as the first professional athlete to walk down its runway. It was a big moment for the Chicago Sky forward. Teammates watched. Her mother, Angel Webb Reese, sat in the audience.
Reese trended on social media and people were still talking about her Thursday morning when she posted her favorite photos on Instagram for her 5.1 million followers.
“Wings? Secured. Walk? Legendary. @Reese10Angel made her Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show debut look like light work becoming the first pro athlete to do it,” BET wrote on X.
The show at Duggal Greenhouse at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York had a lot of sporty spice. Reese wasn’t the only athlete in the show.
Two-time Olympic gold medal gymnast Sunisa “Suni” Lee wore PINK shorts and a sports bra during the event’s “halftime show.”
The champion athletes joined other newcomers and famous Angels Adriana Lima, Bella and Gigi Hadid, Ashley Graham and Alessandra Ambrosio.
Fun fact: Reese holds her own in the height department against these queens of the runway, none taller than 6-feet.
The 23-year-old Reese told reporters she hired a modeling coach to “perfect my walk.”
“I walk, sleep, hoop,” she said. “And I hoop, sleep, walk.”
Walking to Lumidee’s “Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh),” Reese wore the show’s signature angel wings with a pink lingerie set.
“It was destined for me,” Reese told The Associated Press before the show.
“This is already for me. I’m so happy to be sitting in this room with so many amazing models and women. The team that put this all together has been amazing.”
Model Jasmine Tookes, who is 9 months pregnant, opened the show in a gold ensemble that showed off her baby bump. A pearl-studded wing shaped like a clamshell conjured Botticelli’s Renaissance painting, “The Birth of Venus.”
Reese recalled telling herself at last year’s show that she would be a Victoria’s Secret model one day. “I didn’t know it was gonna come this fast,” she told CNN.
She wound up having conversations with Victoria’s Secret CEO Hillary Super.
“She really told me… ‘You can be here. You’re an athlete, you have the body and you look amazing, and you’re really, really confident,’” Reese said.
Both the lingerie company and its annul fashion show have undergone makeovers in recent years as Victoria’s Secret responded to criticism of how it represented women. When TV viewership of the show fell off a cliff, it was cancelled in 2019 ... but it returned with a lot of hoopla last October with a more diverse cast.
Alex Consani, who made her own history last year by becoming the first trans woman to walk the runway, returned this year.
That emphases on inclusivity was important to both Reese and Lee, they told reporters.
“Growing up, I didn’t see many girls who looked like me in spaces like this. To now be here as an athlete, as someone who’s worked so hard to achieve her dreams, it feels powerful,” Lee told Marie Claire magazine.
“I want young girls to know they don’t have to fit into just one box. You can chase Olympic gold and still own your femininity.”
Part of that rebranding included working with new celebrities. Former “Euphoria” actress Barbie Ferreira and YouTuber Quenlin Blackwell modeled Wednesday, too.
“I’m not going to shy away from looking like this, because I work my ass off for this body,” Reese told CNN before the show. “Being sexy is just something that I love and always embrace.”
“One of her biggest dreams was to walk this show,” Reese’s friend Law Roach, the celebrity stylist who co-hosted the show, told The AP before the show.
“We had a conversation. I told her, ‘I don’t think that’s a big dream at all. And for that to happen in a year or less, that she’s walking the show and, I mean, she looks stunning, like the hair, the makeup, her presence, she’s ready, she’s excited.”
Now every time you hear a ball dribble an Angel gets her wings.