Victoria's Secret models are in a league of their own—even guys who stamp passports for a living know that.  "It's the one thing I always get asked when I get to immigration in the States," German model Julia Stegner says. "They're like, 'You're a model? Do you do Victoria's Secret?'"
Stegner is, in fact, one of the 33 otherworldly women who walked in the lingerie brand's fashion show in New York yesterday. (The show airs on CBS on November 30th.) What sets her and her friends apart?  Backstage before the show, Lily Donaldson might have articulated it best: "We've all got great bodies, obviously." Their confidence, their almost cruel enjoyment of their own hotness is just as much a part of it.  "I'm about to turn 20," Chanel Iman announces, "and all I want to do is wear lingerie in front of everybody."
Unlike the flat-chested 16-year-olds who populate most fashion runways, these women know who they are. They know what they're made of. Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio, Karolina Kurkova are (somehow) all mothers, and Selita Ebanks is the first to admit that she doesn't really need the Miraculous bra. "We all know that Selita's well-endowed on top," she says. For the record: "The bra definitely does work."
And so do the girls. Don't for a moment think that just anyone can do what they do in underwear, or that they look forward to changing out of their work clothes any less than the rest of us.  "When I get home after wearing a thong all day," says Candice Swanepoel, "it's the best feeling to put on a pair of cotton panties. You would not even imagine." Of course we wouldn't.