Heidi Klum demanded to wear the biggest wings out of all the Victoria's Secret models for the fashion shows, a new docuseries about the brand reveals
- "Victoria's Secret: Angeles and Demons" shows how competitive models got over wearing the famous wings.
- Heidi Klum demanded that she wear the biggest wings in the televised fashion shows.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Victoria's Secret brand was at its zenith thanks to its "Angels" marketing campaign, which turned a handful of models into instant celebrities.
At the time, Heidi Klum was the biggest star among the brand's talent. Now, a new Hulu docuseries shows how she made sure everyone knew she was the one on top.
"Heidi always wanted the biggest wings," wing designer Martin Izquierdo said in the first episode of the streamer's three-part documentary, "Victoria's Secret: Angeles and Demons."
He added that the ones Klum wore were up to 10-12 feet high.
The episode, which premieres on Thursday, shows the evolution of the company from a tasteful lingerie catalog into a pop-culture staple.
The marketing of models as angels played a large role in that evolution, and soon enough, Victoria's Secret and its models got so popular that the brand started a fashion show in 1995.
By the early 2000s, it was a prime-time televised must-see spectacle. For years, Klum was the featured model.
Matt Tyrnauer, who directed the docuseries, told Insider that he wanted to include the insight about Klum to show how catty things got among the models at the height of the brand's popularity, and, looking back, how silly the "Angels" campaign really was.
"The wings were an obvious and dumb idea and that they worked is what astonished me, and worked for so long," Tyrnauer told Insider. "But internally they worked too because you see the models competing to wear the biggest wings and that attracted them to the job."
"That its mojo is based on wings that could come from a Las Vegas floor show circa 1965 should really make people question what our culture has come to," Tyrnauer continued. "And I frankly think that the people behind that should ultimately be ashamed of themselves, but I'm sure they laughed all the way to the bank."
"Victoria's Secret: Angeles and Demons" chronicles the rise and fall of the Victoria's Secret brand, and also exposes how its former billionaire owner Les Wexner had a close friendship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.