Winnie Harlow On (Finally!) Making it to the Victoria's Secret Runway
Seven years ago, Winnie Harlow was meticulously folding, and re-folding, a rainbow of women's underwear as an employee of the Canadian lingerie store, La Senza. Staring up at the campaign posters plastered on the wall, zeroing in on the model, she recalls thinking: “I want to be that girl someday.” And now, things have come full circle—and then some—as Harlow reveals exclusively to Vogue that she’ll walk in the 2018 Victoria’s Secret Show.
While the 24-year-old Toronto native has ascended to the upper strata of the fashion world since breaking out on America's Next Top Model in 2014, becoming a runway regular, making an evocative appearance in Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade, and serving as an outspoken role model for her 4.2 million Instagram followers, being cast for the iconic global event marks a new milestone. “It’s the pinnacle of my career,” she says. “I told anyone [who] asked, ‘I want Victoria’s Secret!’” But even with all the high-stakes pressure, both self-inflicted and innate to the cut-throat audition experience, Harlow didn’t buckle when it came time to walk for Victoria's Secret casting veteran, Edward Razek. “I thought it was going to be the most intimidating thing, but it was actually so natural,” she says, adding that when she found out she’d been cast, "she dropped to the floor and started balling."
And while landing a spot on the Victoria's Secret catwalk is a personal coup for Harlow, it also assuages the desires of many fans who were upset, to put it mildly, when Harlow was absent from the brand’s 2017 lineup after trying out last year. “When I didn’t get it, I was really, really crushed,” she admits. “So many people took to Twitter and Instagram asking me why I wasn’t in the show. I felt so bad disappointing them. I’m happy to make them proud and strut my stuff this year."
Like her Angel idols Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks that came before her, Harlow wants to shatter pre-existing beauty standards and promote body confidence on the Victoria’s Secret runway. “Why is there a stigma around being different when we’re all different?” asks Harlow, who has vitiligo, a condition that causes patches of pigmentation loss in the skin. “Representation is so important, and I want to [stand for] all women. Every single woman.”
As for gearing up to slip on her Angel wings for the big day in November, Harlow will continue the high-intensity workouts she instated three months ago so that she looks and feels her best in front of the show's 5.5 million viewers. But most important of all, she is focused on relishing the experience, beginning to end. “This is such a monumental moment in my life and career, I just want to celebrate each day leading up to it," she says, adding with a laugh: "Oh, and keep myself from crying the moment I walk on that stage!"
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