What To Expect When Victoria's Secret Sexes Up Soho

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Amidst the smoldering embers of the recession's victims, Chicago is experiencing a retail renaissance. A Barneys more grand than the New York store opened this year, luxury labels are flocking to the Gold Coast like never before, and Victoria's Secret is making identical moves on Chicago's Michigan Ave as they are here, on Broadway in Soho.

Specifically, Vicky's is closing up a smaller shop and moving a few blocks into a hugely renovated flagship location; in Chicago, it's a former giant Potterybarn while here it's the combined old spots of Eastern Mountain Sports and Lounge. Although as we've told you before, the Soho one still needs a few more weeks to get all shiny and merchandised, the Chicago flagship is debuting any day now, and from the hubbub surrounding it we can make some assumptions for the Soho debut.

A few things spotted in Chicago which could very well show up soon in Soho:

· The tagline "What's Sexy, Chicago?"
This is printed on bus stops, buses, billboards, in local periodicals and more. It'd be so cheap and easy to change it to "What's Sexy, New York?"

· Pink Christmas lights
VS has obviously worked something out with Chicago so that they could string the trees on their side of the street with hot pink Christmas lights. While Broadway in Soho doesn't have trees for this, it does have cast-iron building facades just begging for dramatic pink uplighting.

· Runway angel wings on the street
You know those giant wings like theatrical props that get strapped onto models during their brief catwalk during the Victoria's Secret fashion show? Well, they have become an impromptu public art exhibition along Michigan Ave in Chicago, as they are encased in glass boxes like museum vitrines, and perfectly placed so that passersby can have their pictures taken standing in front of them. Tourists to New York would have heart palpitations in excitement over these, so expect the wings to migrate east in a few weeks' time.

· Storecasting: Victoria's Secret Gives Us A Pink Peek [Racked]
· Victoria's Secret Turns Pink In Soho [Racked]