Victoria’s Secret Stopped Scouting? Evie’s Brittany Hugoboom Says So. Here’s Our Take.

Brittany Hugoboom founded Evie Magazine and runs it as editor in chief. She’s a former model who got her start after winning ELLE’s model search, she writes the paid Substack Vanity & Virtue, and spent the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show weekend doing what good fashion critics do: watching closely and saying the uncomfortable part out loud.

On Sunday, Oct. 18, the day of the 2026 show at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, she posted on X:

What frustrates me the most about Victoria’s Secret is that they won’t discover beautiful, young, unknown faces anymore.

Brittany Hugoboom, X, Oct. 18, 2026

She went further: the brand, in her words, leans on the returning icons and “otherwise using nepo babies and influencers.” And she asked the question that turned the post into the weekend’s most-shared take on the show: “Where are the stunning girls with under 1,000 followers you just found walking down the street in Brazil?” By Monday, X’s public counter had the post past 800,000 impressions.

Hours later she put a longer version behind her paywall, “Victoria’s Secret Used to Sell a Fantasy. Now It Casts for Followers.” The subtitle is the thesis: “The icons still look incredible. But a brand can’t build its future entirely out of women we already know.” It’s a sequel, of sorts, to her October 2025 essay “The Death of the Angel: How Victoria’s Secret Misdiagnosed Its Own Illness.” We haven’t read past the paywall, so we’re responding to what she published in the open.

Where she’s right

Discovery was the product. The old show sold a fantasy, but the engine under it was scouting: unknown names who became household names on that runway. When a brand casts mostly people who arrive with an audience, it’s renting attention instead of creating it. That’s a fair critique, and the fans agree with her. After the show, the loudest complaint on Reddit and in fashion forums wasn’t about the clothes. It was about who got the moments. (Our roundup of that chatter is here.)

The Fantasy Bra is the clearest case. Grazia reports the $50 million Jacob & Co. piece, the first runway Fantasy Bra since 2018, went to Kylie Jenner on her first Victoria’s Secret runway. Executive creative director Adam Selman called her a “cultural powerhouse.” Both things can be true. It’s still a casting choice that rewards an existing following over a new face.

Where we’d push back

Victoria’s Secret did try scouting this year, just on camera. Its open casting, filmed for the YouTube docuseries Angels Among Us, ended with 21-year-old Solange Omon named the newest Angel and walking the show, as Elle and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit reported. Fashion Times says thousands applied. You can argue the format is reality TV, and plenty of fans argued about the winner. But it’s not nothing. It’s a door that wasn’t there before.

And the girl “you just found walking down the street” doesn’t go straight to a $50 million runway. She goes to the small shows first. That’s the part of the pipeline the big brands stopped paying attention to, and it’s the part we cover.

Our take from the West Hollywood photo pit

Two nights before the Victoria’s Secret show, we were in the media pit at The Bureau Fashion Week at The Lot Studios in West Hollywood: the Opening on Friday, Oct. 16, and the Finale on Saturday, Oct. 17. Eleven designers, a runway full of working models, most of whom you’ve never heard of yet. That’s where discovery lives in 2026: independent designers, small runways, and people who show up with a camera and actually credit who they shot.

So we’ll take Hugoboom’s challenge literally. If Victoria’s Secret wants new faces, they’re not hiding. They’re on runways in LA every season. We publish the looks, we credit every designer, and we keep a list. Start here.

Agree with her? Think the influencer era is just the new scouting? Tell us on the forum.

Brittany Hugoboom’s posts and essays are hers; we link to them so you can read her in full. Quotes are short excerpts for commentary. Her Substack essays are paywalled and we have not read their full text.