Victoria’s Secret lingerie delivers an epic Frida Khalo moment with its Fall 2022 Very Sexy Midnight at the Oasis campaign. Not since I left Victoria’s Secret many years ago has a presentation resonated so deeply with me.

Smart Sensuality glamour girls Adut Akech, Bella Hadid, Jill Kortleve and Paloma Elsesser channel the ‘70s classic ‘Midnight at the Oasis’ in name and message but not music in the video. Artist Maria Muldaur sang about an empowered sensual woman in the 1973 more likely on the road in Marrakech than Mexico in the classic tune.

Aware or not, VS is also channeling the sensual, political activist feminist Frida Kahlo in this deeply political and threatening moment for American feminism. As Republicans wage a full-throttle assault on women’s rights in America, perhaps Frida Kahlo is guiding them subliminally.

The too-short campaign Fall 2022 Very Sexy Midnight at the Oasis video suggests that is a definite possibility. On the subject of Frida Kahlo, this week we learned that nearly 70 years after her death, ‘Frida, the Musical’ is expected to open on Broadway in 2024.

The campaign also channels the French painter Henri Rousseau, best known for his fanciful, bold paintings of the jungle, teeming with sensual women, flora and fauna. I imagine many Twitter critics on the right and left would seek to ban Rousseau for different reasons.

AOC has always loved Henri Rousseau — even if he was a tax collector who never left France. His 1975 painting ‘The Dream’ has always guided the vision of Anne of Carversville and Frida Kahlo would approve. ~ Anne

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