Victoria's Secret Fashion Show coming to Shanghai

The world's most iconic lingerie fashion show, Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, is coming to Shanghai for the first time ever this year.

This annual fashion event, usually filmed in New York, was also previously hosted in Miami, Los Angeles, and international cities of London and Paris.

Among the Angels who will be heading to the east for the lingerie extravaganza are returning superstars Adriana Lima, Behati Prinsloo, Alessandra Ambrosio, Bella and Gigi Hadid, Jasmin Tookes, Candice Swanepoel, announced Victoria's Secret in a statement on Tuesday.

Musical performers will be announced later, said the statement.

This decision to hold the show in China comes with no surprise.

The announcement was made following the company opened their first two fully-stocked stores on China's mainland, including one flagship store in Shanghai, earlier in February, with four more to be opened later this year.

This year's show will also feature a record number of Chinese models, seen as another signal of the brand's increasing focus on the expanding market of China.

"We continue to be pleased with the first two full assortment Victoria's Secret stores on China's mainland," said Martin Waters, L Brands International president, on an August 17 conference call with stock analysts.

"We continue to be very bullish about our growth opportunities in China and around the world."

China is expected to equal if not exceeding the US in sales in the long term, executives have said.

As Euromonitor's study indicated, the country's female lingerie market is lucrative with an expected retail value of 25 billion US dollars in 2017, and will grow to 33 billion US dollars by 2020.

As the market is still highly fragmented with no major brands leading the way, industry observers say there's room for more competition.

The annual show is seen in more than 190 countries and racked up more than 1.4 billion views worldwide, according to information from Victoria's Secret.

(ECNS)