Note: nudity| Kim Kardashian goes sexy sci-fi in a new Beach Bunny Swimwear campaign inspired by the 1968 cult film ‘Barbarella’.

“My Divinity Collection was inspired by Jane Fonda in the movie ‘Barbarella,’ where she plays a super-sci-fi-sexy Queen of the Galaxy,” Kardashian explains.

The 1968 cult film directed by Roger Vadim flopped on its release but established Jane Fonda as a superhero sex symbol.

Barbarella

Watching this Barbarella clip two days after the Victoria’s Secret 2010 Fashion Show, I can’t help thinking that Fonda’s sexuality is so integrated into her charater, down to her scenes in the ‘excessive machine’, which she blows up.

Discreet sexual desire in women is a powerful energy force. See my prior essay on Barbarella and Samantha.

I’ll be writing a lot about Victoria’s Secret in the coming weeks, not just because I worked in the business for 10 years, but because the brand has veered off its original mission, which was much more tied to sensuality, rather than spectacle.

Candice Swanepoel As Victoria’s Secret Daisy Mae

In many respects, the Victoria’s Secret fashion show has become a Las Vegas-style Miss America pageant. That thought came to me for the first time yesterday, reading the lovely Adriana Lima’s comments that every Angel wants to be honored, chosen to wear the diamond bra.

“OMG,” I exclaimed. “The lingerie brand that set out to liberate American women’s sexuality has little to do with sex anymore. It’s just another beauty pageant. Now young women compete to wear a diamond bra and not the crown. Female sexuality is largely gone from the brand’s DNA at a time when New Eroticism is exploding in fashion and culture media.

New Eroticism replaced 365 Super Sexy in my trend book about three years ago.

New Eroticism focuses on the female body and natural sexual desire.

In reality, many of the Victoria’s Secret Angels are posing nude in mainstream magazines. They are treated like artistic, inspirational goddesses and not some country bumpkin Daisy Mae.

Unfortunately, this branding mayhem is no joke from such an influential company as Victoria’s Secret, which has major impact on how American women feel about sex, body and sensual intimacy.

I’ve always felt that telling American women they should relate to Angels plays into women’s sexual ambivalence. We don’t celebrate our sensuality the way these Braziian, Aussie and European women do.

Two-thirds of American women believe that God is a He, has a persona and watches their every move. I’m beginning to feel that Victoria’s Secret increasingly plays into our religious conservatism with this Miss America nonsense, making us safe show girls and not the living, breathing, sexual, orgasmic women we are.

It’s true that in the early days of Victoria’s Secret we had to pull a marketing window visual because the male model wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. But the point is that a man was in the photo and sensual intimacy was the mood and marketing message behind the lingerie.

We told American women they were divinely sexy and no angel wings were required.

By contrast, today’s Victoria’s Secret woman vies for the diamond bra tiara, and I seriously doubt that she enjoys sex very much, based on research reports of rates of sexual dysfunction in the young unmarried woman with multiple sex partners.

Now for the business part of the conversation. The Victoria’s Secret brand is caught in a time warp and marketing madness.

Candice Swanepoel by Mario Testino | V-Man-20

The same day that VS parades Candice Swanepoel down the runway looking like she’s a Beverly Hills Hillbilly, her V-Man #20 images by Mario Testino are circulating the Internet.

A couple weeks ago, Candice Swanepoel was featured at Anne of Carversville, lensed by the enormously talented photographer Russell James.

Victoria’s Secret’s marketing guru Ed Razek wrote the introduction to the V-2 art book, featuring many of the Angels, including Miranda Kerr. This talented guy is far from clueless, when the subject is branding.

Of course Razek can’t parade naked women down the fashion show runway. But the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is so out of touch with how women of every age are looking at New Eroticism sensuality, I am stupefied trying to explain their business logic to people.

At this point in the evolution of the Victoria’s Secret brand, call me absolutely, totally confused about their real mission with American woman.

Candice Swanepoel by Russel James in V2

Candice Swanepoel | Russell James | V2 Anne of Carversville