The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is back after a five-year hiatus — and so is Tyra Banks… after 19 years!
The 50-year-old modelling icon — who walked in nine separate Victoria’s Secret fashion shows during her tenure with the brand before retiring from modelling in 2005 — made her grand return to the runway in New York on Tuesday, October 15, 2024 to the roar of the crowd as “Native New Yorker” played.
Banks, 50, closed the over-the-top show with her signature strut and smize, wearing a show-stopping outfit. She emerged from below the stage and took the runway by storm, strutting her stuff wearing a silver cape with black lining, a crystal-crusted bustier, sparkly black leggings and heels. The midsection of her ensemble was also emblazoned with silver jewels.
Meanwhile, the rest of the show’s models — including Adriana Lima, Ashley Graham, Gigi Hadid, Bella Hadid, Kate Moss, Barbara Palvin, Taylor Hill and more — walked in a group behind Banks.
Appropriately, pink confetti fell from the sky.
Banks previously told Harper’s BAZAAR that “it’s a little bit of an out-of-body experience” walking in the show nearly two decades after hanging up her wings in 2005 — and revealed she has been “walking around in heels” to practice!
“I walked off that runway and I [had] this big retirement and it was such a spectacle,” she told the outlet. “I felt like that athlete that’s like, ‘I’m hanging up my cleats … I’m retiring the basketball.’ And then, now I’m back!”
“I never in a million years thought that I would be back on the runway, but I am so beyond excited and so ready for this,” added Banks.
Banks also took a moment during the same interview to reflect on being an OG Angel and that her involvement with the brand was only a crack in the door of diversity in the fashion industry.
“You know, it’s interesting, because in terms of diversity, I was diverse. I was considered curvier, and I was a Black girl, and I think it’s important to still acknowledge that at that time … 19 years ago, [it] was, ‘Wow, they’re putting Tyra on covers and they’re breaking all these barriers and Victoria’s Secret is stepping out and saying she’s the first Black woman this,’ and really pushing against the norm,” she told the publication. “Today, what is even more beautiful is [that] they’ve burst those doors open. I feel like I cracked it open, and now that they’re burst open, I’m so excited.”
Banks made history as the first African American woman chosen to cover the Victoria’s Secret catalog and later walked her first runway show in 1996 before strutting her stuff in a total of eight more.
A revamped version of the Victoria’s Secret show returned last year after it was canceled in 2019 amid criticism that the show and the company’s products were not inclusive. However, the 2024 runway show marks the first time in five years that it reverted back to the traditional catwalk format, which aired on network television for nearly 20 years before finding its place on Prime Video.
