Originally appeared on E! Online
Tyra Banks is back on top at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
The “America’s Next Top Model” creator made a triumphant comeback at the famed lingerie presentation Oct. 15, closing out the show in a black bustier with crystal embellishments, a silver cape with black lining, dark leggings and strappy heels.
In true Banks fashion, she brought her signature smize as she sashayed down the runway — her first catwalk since retiring from modeling in 2005.
The 50-year-old is considered one of the “OG” Victoria’s Secret Angels, having walked in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show during its early days in the ’90s. Overall, Banks appeared in nine shows — wearing the iconic Fantasy Bra in two of them — during her eight-year modeling contract with the underwear brand.
“When I decided to retire, Victoria’s Secret had come to me and had another contract on the table,” she recently told Harper’s Bazaar. “And I decided that ‘No, I need to be a talk show host and I need to be trusted for my words. I don’t think I can be taken seriously if I am still a model,’ and maybe that was true at that time.”
And now, Banks believes the world has “evolved in such a way that I can be a businesswoman and have my ice cream company and speak at business institutions and get my certificate from my Harvard course and teach at Stanford and, yes, be a Victoria’s Secret model.”
“I think the world has changed to see that, as women, we don’t have to be a stereotype and to fit into one mold,” she explained. “And so I feel very excited and fortunate to come back and celebrate all of myself and not feel like I have to cut off a piece to be taken seriously.”
The “Tyra Banks Show” alum also said it’s “exciting” to see how the fashion world has embraced bodies of all shapes and sizes over the years.
“I was considered curvier, and I was a Black girl, and I think it’s important to still acknowledge that at that time,” she noted. “And today, what is even more beautiful is [that] they’ve burst those doors open.”
Banks added, “It’s just like this continuation of beauty and diversity, which is really exciting.”