The 12 Best Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show Performances of All Time

Reported by Harper's Bazaar.

The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show has always sold itself on spectacle — the wings, the lingerie, the impossibly long legs — but the performances? Equally iconic, frequently unhinged, and almost always the thing people are still talking about the next morning. According to Harper's Bazaar, the show didn't even feature live music until 2001, when Mary J. Blige and Andrea Bocelli shared a bill in what remains the most eclectic opening act in fashion history. Since then, the runway has functioned less like a catwalk and more like the world's most glamorous concert stage.

The Performances That Actually Changed the Show

Some sets were so perfectly matched to the moment they feel inevitable in retrospect. Rihanna in 2012 didn't just perform — she walked the runway herself, delivering "Diamonds" in a black gown before returning in pink lace to do a catwalk that, honestly, put most of the Angels to shame. Justin Timberlake's 2006 "SexyBack" opened with a Cell Block Tango-inspired set and featured Gisele Bündchen as his unofficial co-star — proof, apparently, that the song required VS models to reach its full potential. Then there's The Weeknd at the 2016 Paris show, singing "Starboy" as his very recent ex-girlfriend Bella Hadid made her runway debut and walked straight past him without flinching. The internet never recovered, nor should it have.

Taylor Swift's 2014 takeover deserves its own paragraph. Fresh off releasing 1989, she performed "Style" and "Blank Space" while walking hand-in-hand with then-best friend Karlie Kloss in matching black lace — a moment so aggressively on-brand for that era of her career it almost feels scripted. The Spice Girls in 2007 went even further: they didn't share the runway with models. They were the runway, performing "Stop" in satin '40s army looks while male dancers backed them up, with zero models walking during their set. Bold, chaotic, correct.

The 2024 comeback show — six years after the brand went dark — brought two performances worth the wait. Tyla pulled double duty, strutting as a model while performing "Push 2 Start" and "Water" like she'd been doing this for years. And then there was Cher, 78 years old, performing "Believe" and "Strong Enough" with the kind of energy that makes the concept of retirement feel genuinely embarrassing. She became the oldest performer in the show's history and made it look effortless.

The VS Fashion Show has always understood something that most fashion events don't: music isn't background noise, it's architecture. When it works — Usher in Miami, Destiny's Child in matching gold, Andrea Bocelli singing from an actual balcony over a light-up forest — the whole thing transcends the clothes entirely. With a 2026 show already on the horizon, the only real question is who gets handed the stage next.

The lingerie may be what gets you to watch, but it's the performances you actually remember.

Read the original at Harper's Bazaar.