By CINTRA WILSON
Published: February 14, 2008
GRAVITY shifted the items in my dish rack the other day, making the blade of one of my better knives suddenly slide its entire length along the stem of a wet wineglass. It gave me goose bumps, it was such an unexpectedly erotic sound; the kind of foley you’d hear if Liliana Cavani (“The Night Porter”) directed a Batman movie: Zing!
The wineglass shatters on the floor. The finger of a huge black glove stops the quiver of the pale vixen’s lower lip.
Subtleties of eroticism can turn the banal into the fantastic, but Victoria’s Secret has not made its money by being subtle. Its apparent formula for mass-marketing fantasies is to turn the erotic into the banal.
Published: February 14, 2008
GRAVITY shifted the items in my dish rack the other day, making the blade of one of my better knives suddenly slide its entire length along the stem of a wet wineglass. It gave me goose bumps, it was such an unexpectedly erotic sound; the kind of foley you’d hear if Liliana Cavani (“The Night Porter”) directed a Batman movie: Zing!
The wineglass shatters on the floor. The finger of a huge black glove stops the quiver of the pale vixen’s lower lip.
Subtleties of eroticism can turn the banal into the fantastic, but Victoria’s Secret has not made its money by being subtle. Its apparent formula for mass-marketing fantasies is to turn the erotic into the banal.
Like a porn star with too many memoirs, Victoria’s secrets are pretty much overexposed at this point. “Ahh, whatever,” Victoria says. “Let me let you in on a little something, girls. You want sex? Hit the guy real hard with blunt sex objects.”
Voilà: Eros demythologized. All double entendres reduced to one big fat entendre for your retail convenience.
The Victoria’s Secret near Herald Square is a slick, two-story mega-sexopolis, catering mainly to the boudoir needs of angry tourists. If Siegfried & Roy ever wanted to start a Nevada chicken-ranch-plus-amusement park — a stretch-lace and animal-print McDonaldland of acceptable corporate erotica for the family casino crowd — this would be the ideal jumping-off point.
Valentine’s Day is a big deal for this chain that regards itself as the answer to the question, “What is sexy?” Victoria’s Secret is, to this holiday, what Toys “R” Us was to Christmas: your one stop for totally unimaginative shopping.
Victoria, after all, can’t be bothered with nuance: She’s got thousands of seductions to perform today. There is a slow striptease happening on the product shelves, at a subconscious level.
Judging by their names — Love Spell, Romantic Wish, Endless Love — lotions on a perfectly innocent, nursery-color wall seem to be hoping a nice boy will ask them to dance at the church mixer. The smell of these hormone-sick unguents is, without exception, both sanitary and cloying, and remarkably like those cardboard fruit deodorizers that livery service drivers hang on their rearview mirrors.
Next comes an entire section of novelties devoted to the martyrdom of St. Valentine: gifts that do all the bedroom begging for you — e.g., boxer shorts that say “Love Me.” A plastic didgeridoo full of Sexy Candy turns out to be those sugar hearts from grade school, but with a PG-13 power dynamic: Beg Me, Dare Me.
“Dream Angels,” according to Victoria’s propaganda, is America’s No. 1 fragrance, which makes sense in an obese nation with no self-control: it smells like an alcoholic Twinkie. In any case, shiny his and her gift boxes are an eyebrow-raising $69.
For lovers aspiring to cannibalism, there is a Very Sexy Edible Body Icing package ($19.50), featuring jars labeled Hot Vanilla, Craving Chocolate and Strawberry Kiss. (A handful of Duncan Hines tubes wrapped in a note that says “Remove Your Clothes” apparently doesn’t pack the same wallop.)
A sticker on the Sexy Little Things body mist begs, “Pick Me Up ... I Purr!” ($20). Sure enough, when I lifted this bottle off the shelf, it propositioned me. I set it down quickly and wiped my hand on my pants.
The nail polish is decidedly more flirty in its pursuit of puppy love: I Won’t Bite, Nibble, Skinny Dip.
And Pet. (Come hither, Gloria Steinem, and bring your flamethrower.)
The lipstick colors are brazenly uninhibited: Satin Sheets, Beg Me, Don’t Stop, Sex Kitten, Sensual.
But the Lip Stain is basically just an all-out, no-frills, escort service drive-thru menu: Quickie, Nubile, Proposition, Unzipped.
“Very Sexy,” shout the rhinestones of a velvet makeup bag, just to hammer the point into a wet pink pulp.
Upstairs, the jailbait orgy is in full swing. “Pink” squeal the bottoms on an entire wing of sorority-style underpants and slumber-sportswear. Mamas, don’t let your babies go to the Royal Academy of Pink. After all, one of the primary goals of parenthood, to paraphrase Chris Rock, is to keep your daughter “off the pole.”
There is a certain charm in directness, if it’s done right. I am concerned, however, that Victoria seems to be acting out feelings of low self-esteem through indiscriminate promiscuity.
Victoria’s Secret did nail my consumer reptile brain a couple of times. There was a small section devoted to rockabilly-esque, vintage undergarments, ripped right off a 1950s pinup girl.
I was taken by a pair of black, high-waist lace knickers that had that paneled, retro-support garment look I think is fetching with garters and black seam thigh-highs ($24). Very Mickey Spillane.
An attractive saleswoman, whose chest was covered in enough body glitter to be a solar panel, disagreed: “Put that down! You don’t need that. You got nothing to hold in.”
I asked about her experience of this annual rush.
“At least people are happy when they come in for Valentine’s Day. The rest of the time? Thpppppf.” She punctuated this raspberry with a thumbs-down.
She consoled me after informing me they have discontinued Size 32C in my favorite push-up bra, and offered alternatives. (I bought the 34B, but I must say, it doesn’t hold the same magic.) When I finally reached the cashiers at the end of the long, casino-buffet-style, human-cattle-processing line, I confess I also bought the Mickey Spillane panties. They don’t go overboard. They’re almost subtle.
Batman, I thought, might like them. Hey, Dark Knight. Wanna be my Valentine? I’ll crack open a bottle of sparkling body mist. It talks a blue streak, but it smells like a bundt cake.
Puurrrrrrfect.
Victoria’s Secret
1328 Broadway (Herald Square); (212) 356-8380.
SEXY An exhaustive inventory offers goods suggestive enough for even the most torpid imaginations.
TOO SEXY Among the vampish sateens on the second floor, look for the batch of ruffly pastel costume-drama pantaloons, perfect for that Malmaison weekend, or perhaps a community production of “The Best Little Whorehouse on the Prairie.”
O.K., ENOUGH WITH THE SEXY Avoid the shamelessly overpriced Just Cavalli collection, a line of Vegas-style bras and thongs halfheartedly graffitied with the Cavalli signature in rhinestones. But a certain red lace push-up with rhinestones flourishes and leopard-print interior might inspire even Miss Havisham to put a trapeze in the bedroom ($68).
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