It's the end of an era for Victoria's Secret—at least for now.
This year's Victoria's Secret Fashion Show will not go on as planned, E! News has learned. The chief financial officer and executive vice president of L Brands, which owns Victoria's Secret, confirmed its cancellation during a conference call on Thursday.
"We'll be communicating to customers, but nothing that I would say is similar in magnitude to the fashion show... You can be sure we'll be communicating with customers through lots of vehicles including social media and various, more current platforms, if you will," Stuart Burgdoerfer said.
Speculation regarding the star-studded event's future has mounted over the past several months. In July, longtime Victoria's Secret model Shanina Shaik told The Daily Telegraph that the 2019 runway show had been axed, saying, "It's something I'm not used to because every year around this time I'm training like an angel. But I'm sure in the future something will happen, which I'm pretty sure about."
She added at the time, "I'm sure they're trying to work on branding and new ways to do the show because it's the best show in the world."
Today's development comes at an increasingly difficult time for the world-famous lingerie brand. Sales have steadily declined over the past three years, especially as consumers turn to more outwardly inclusive brands like Rihanna's Savage x Fenty, Aerie and ThirdLove.
What's more, the 2018 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show—which featured A-list models like Bella Hadid, Behati Prinsloo, Gigi Hadid and Adriana Lima—sunk to its lowest ratings of all time.
In May, an internal memo published by CNBC informed Victoria's Secret employees that that they were "rethinking" the annual fashion show and decided that network television was no longer "the right fit."