When it comes to Victoria’s Secret lore, the Fantasy bra ranks right up there with angel wings. Only a select few have been chosen to walk in the diamond- and gem-encrusted creations that make their way down the famed Victoria’s Secret runway, and the women selected join a supermodel-filled club that includes Gisele Bündchen, Claudia Schiffer, and Tyra Banks. This year, those names will be joined by Jasmine Tookes. “When they told me, I was so caught off guard, I thought I was just doing an interview, and Ed [Razek, Victoria’s Secret chief marketing officer] kind of sprung it on me,” said Tookes, on the set of the brand’s latest campaign. “It’s such an honor for me to join a whole group of women who are icons, and who I grew up watching over the years.” She may be following in the footsteps of her heroes, but the bra Tookes will be wearing is different than any that Victoria’s Secret has done before. This year’s edition received an update courtesy of designer Eddie Borgo, who brought a downtown cool to the project, reimagining the piece as a sexy push-up covered in a series of spikes and studs. Tapped by Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show creative director and friend Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou to create this year’s bra, Borgo and the team worked for seven months to create a design that combined the hallmarks of his personal work with the vampy Victoria’s Secret aesthetic. “It was important to the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show collection team that the design represented some of the different iconography, shapes, and techniques that we use consistently within my namesake collection,” says Borgo, who researched breastplates and nontraditional costuming in preparation. Keeping with the decadence the piece is known for, Borgo worked in a new material, emeralds. “I had never worked with traditional emeralds before, and, due to their fragility, they are not used often today,” says Borgo, who was drawn to the stone’s vividness. “The color of a true emerald is inimitable.” For Tookes, the addition of emeralds made the design feel personal, “They are one of my favorite gemstones—I have a lot of rings that have emeralds on them, so this matches perfectly with my jewelry collection,” says Tookes. (She didn’t mind the diamonds, either. “I’m a girl who loves diamonds, so this is perfect for me.”) Behind the scenes, having the right rocks was far from the only concern. To get the perfect fit, Borgo relied on a combination of old techniques and new, creating a virtual scan of Tookes’s body to create the shape, as well as utilizing plaster molds to ensure the piece would mold to Tookes’s curves. Getting things right was crucial. “I am so fond of Sophia; she has been supportive of me from the first days I established my company. I wanted to ensure that we did the absolute best job we could,” says Borgo. Posing while covered in plaster wasn’t a cakewalk, but Tookes was up to the challenge. “I sat there for three hours really still and they plastered my whole body, so now I have this little sculpture.” The final piece handcrafted with jewels by AWMouzannar  took 700 hours to complete, and fully lives up to its extravagant reputation. With 9,000 precious gemstones set in more than 450 karats of 18K gold, it’s hard to think of a piece of lingerie that could compete with the fantasy bra in terms of decadence—which is exactly the point. With this year’s Victoria’s Secret show headed to Paris, the focus is set to be on glamour and luxury in addition to the event’s traditionally campier moments. Even with the world’s most lavish bra set to make its catwalk—and television—debut, Tookes promises we haven’t seen anything yet. “The energy is going to be amazing in Paris, everyone is so excited—it’s going to be one of the best VS shows yet!” says Tookes, who admits she may never look at regular old un-bejeweled underwear in quite the same way. “I don’t ever want to take it off—every other bra I wear after this is going to feel like crap!”  

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