The Secret to Victoria’s Secret?

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In opening the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show to great fanfare, the Rutgers University Marching Scarlet Knights drum line gave a three-minute performance called “The British Invasion.” The full band also performed at this year's Super Bowl.

Photography: 

Timothy Smith

What’s a New York fashion show featuring the world’s top models dressed in Victoria’s Secret lingerie without a performance by the Rutgers University Marching Scarlet Knights drum line? Certainly not the extravaganza it could be. Fortunately for gathered guests and celebrities, the drum line was there, opening the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in November with a stirring performance that introduced Fall Out Boy and Taylor Swift—all before the models began walking the runway.

Entitled “The British Invasion,” the three-minute presentation was one of six themes presented during the production. Fifteen members dressed in the black hats and red coats reminiscent of the Queen’s Guard participated, culminating the arduous preparation under junior Paul Nalesnik, the lead instructor of the drum line, and the show’s producers and directors, who have also put on the entertainment for the Academy Awards.

Timothy Smith, the university director of athletic bands and a faculty member at the Mason Gross School of the Arts who was instrumental in organizing the collaboration, said that the band’s dressing room served as the pathway between the makeup room and the elevator ferrying the models to the runway. The band’s own excitement was matched, Smith MGSA’98 said, by the models themselves, who were thrilled to have the drum line as part of the show, which was rebroadcast on CBS in December and ultimately aired in 185 nations. Television viewers will get to see the entire marching band on February 2 when it takes part in the pregame festivities for Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.