The point being, of course: Argue with that, haters.

The problem being: You can. (While the social media numbers may be booming, the in-store sales are not, a discrepancy that should be noted by all brands that equate fans and likes with revenues).

VS may well still be — as Edward Razek, the chief marketing officer of L Brands (VS’s parent company) and the man behind the spectacle, insisted in an interview with Vogue before the show — “the 800-pound gorilla in the space,” with a bra that “will sell more as a single item than a small competitor that’s been trying to make a lot of noise lately [sells from its complete range].” (Ahem.)

It may be doing its best to try to move with the times, adding more sports bras and dropping some of the excruciating cultural stereotypes that got it in trouble in the past, avoiding the pitfalls of Native American headdresses this time in favor of safer moons and stars. Its models have become more diverse in terms of skin tone, if not in gender definition or size. (There were a few curvier women on the catwalk but none that could qualify as plus size by any objective definition.)

But its essential vocabulary — its approach to the world — is still dedicated to an idea of sexy rooted in the pinup era, when women and their bodies were defined by the eye and imagination of a male beholder; when they were at the mercy of the moguls. When their flesh was strapped in and sucked in and their cleavage was pushed up and their bottoms were cantilevered out by the physics of spike heels, and everything was waxed and moisturized to airbrushed extremes, and it was all covered by a scrim of lacy peekaboo. And that era is on its way to extinction.

To pretend this is not so is to ignore everything we have learned over the last year about men and women and perception and the danger of received conventions. To think that presenting women as presents to be unwrapped does not shape social expectations is to fool yourself. If Victoria’s Secret wants to remain relevant to the cultural conversation, it has to accept some responsibility for re-forming (and reforming) that conversation. Right now it simply doth protest too much. Climate change is not just about the environment.