Victoria's Secret changed its Fashion Show casting model in 2024, inviting content creators alongside traditional celebrity models for the first time in the event's history. According to Glossy, the brand abandoned its decades-long practice of limiting runway access to Angels and A-list names, instead seeding participation to influencers who carried their own audiences. The event generated 20 million impressions from creator-owned channels before broadcast, according to the brand's own reporting cited in the coverage.
The mechanics: Victoria's Secret identified creators across fashion, beauty, and lifestyle verticals with combined reach in the multi-million follower range and invited them to walk, attend, or cover the show. Each creator posted to their owned channels—Instagram, TikTok, YouTube—documenting rehearsals, backstage access, and runway moments. The brand provided no paid media spend for creator posts; compensation came in the form of access, product, and association with the event itself. Glossy reported that the shift represented a deliberate move away from the exclusive, closed-door model that had defined the show since its 1995 inception.
The mechanism works because creators monetize access. A fashion influencer's audience tunes in for proximity to closed events, and a runway invitation delivers that proximity in a format the audience already consumes. The brand trades exclusivity—once a core asset—for distribution. Each creator becomes a broadcast node, delivering event content to a segmented, engaged audience the brand would otherwise reach only through paid media or earned coverage in legacy outlets. The trade is clean: the brand gets reach without media cost, the creator gets content and status, and the audience gets vicarious access.
The secondary benefit is format diversity. Traditional fashion show coverage flows through editors and photographers, filtered and delayed. Creator coverage is immediate, unfiltered, and native to the platform where the audience already scrolls. A TikTok video posted from backstage 30 minutes before the show airs reaches viewers who would never watch a broadcast but will watch a 60-second vertical clip. The brand multiplies its content surface area without producing or buying the content.
The steal for a small physical-product brand: identify 5-10 creators in your category with 10,000-50,000 followers and invite them to something with inherent access value—a product launch, a sample sale, a warehouse tour, a private preview. The event does not need to be large; it needs to be closed to the public. Send the invitation 3 weeks in advance with clear messaging: this is exclusive, attendance is limited, and they are invited because of their audience. Offer no cash payment. Offer access, product, and the right to document.
Structure the event for content. If you sell kitchen tools, host a 2-hour cooking session with a chef using your unreleased line. If you sell outdoor gear, run a half-day trail session testing prototypes. The event must deliver two things: utility for the creator (usable content) and differentiation for the audience (something they cannot access otherwise). Film nothing yourself. Let the creators produce the content in their own voice and format.
Post-event, collect and archive every piece of creator content. Track impressions, engagement, and traffic. Compare the cost—product, venue, catering—to the equivalent paid media buy for the same reach. For most small brands, the cost will be 10-20% of the media-buy equivalent. Use the performance data to refine the next event: which creator formats drove traffic, which audience segments engaged, which access points generated the most content.
The pattern extends. Once you run one successful creator event, you can scale the model: quarterly drops, regional previews, limited collaborations. The asset is not the event; the asset is the repeatable system that turns access into distributed content. Victoria's Secret ran this at flagship scale. You run it at 10-person scale with the same mechanics.