Beneath the delicate lace and barely-there gussets, the world of lingerie retail is a brutal one. Look at Victoria’s Secret. Less than a decade ago, the American brand had a third of the US market and made billions of dollars in sales. Now, it’s losing customers and falling into irrelevance, reinventing itself for the second time in three years in a desperate attempt at revival.
Victoria’s Secret wasn’t just a business juggernaut: it was a cultural force, too, thanks to its annual fashion shows. From 2001 on, these were broadcast on American prime time, drawing audiences of ten million at their peak to watch the world’s sexiest women — branded as “Victoria’s Secret Angels” — totter about in stilettos and pants. Entertainment was provided by the likes of Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga.
In the Noughties, everyone who was anyone wanted to be seen in Victoria’s Secret. But, like an overpriced thong in a too-hot wash, it all began to fall apart. The sales stopped growing, and the audiences cratered. In 2018, its market share had fallen to a quarter, and the show was watched by only 3.3 million. The next year, it was cancelled.
Victoria’s Secret was out of step with the times. In the Nineties and Noughties, its “bombshell” models had been notable for being a little curvier than the waif shape that dominated high fashion. But in the 2010s, designers started to embrace “midsize” bodies: boobs notwithstanding, the Angels were beginning to look dated.
Victoria’s Secret seemed to have no interest in evolving. In 2018, Edward Razek, the marketing chief of its parent company, told Vogue he had no intention of casting plus-size or trans models, “because the show is a fantasy”. After a predictable backlash, Razek apologised and was soon out of his job.
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It was a hapless comment in several ways — after all, a fleeting acquaintance with online porn would have shown him that being plus size or trans is no barrier to being objectified. It also stated the essential truth underlying the problem with Victoria’s Secret: it really was about a fantasy version of femininity, filtered through a specific male gaze. That had always been the case. The store was founded in 1977 after the entrepreneur Roy Larson Raymond had an unhappy shopping trip trying to buy lingerie for his wife. He thought there was a gap in the market for a store that welcomed male customers and sold the sort of smalls men wanted to see on women.
For a long time, this was a winning formula, but by 2019, it had started to look skeevy. Nothing underlined that like the company’s association with Jeffrey Epstein, the millionaire paedophile who was arrested that year. Epstein was close to the company’s chief executive, Leslie Wexner.
The attraction of a lingerie company to a predator like Epstein is obvious: he posed as a scout to gain access to the models. Wexner cut ties with Epstein after the allegations came to light, and he has denied knowledge of his former friend’s abuses. Still, in a post-#MeTooworld, Victoria’s Secret was left looking tatty and damaged. In 2020, Wexner stepped down.
Victoria’s Secret reinvented itself. The diversity that Razek had been opposed to was suddenly in: the American soccer star Megan Rapinoe launched a sports collection, the Brazilian trans model Valentina Sampaio pouted in blue lace, and Sofia Jirau (who has Down’s syndrome) wore a VS push-up bra.
But sales kept sliding and now Victoria’s Secret is — according to headlines — “bringing sexy back” with an all-new TV special on Amazon Prime starring the supermodels Gigi Hadid and Naomi Campbell. “Go woke, go broke!” gloat commentators, who assume that after a bruising encounter with economic reality, Victoria’s Secret is running back to conventional beauty standards with its tail between its stockinged legs.
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That’s not quite the full story. Things aren’t so parlous for Victoria’s Secret as they might appear: it’s still clinging on to 19 per cent of the US market. And the Prime film is hardly a return to the eye candy days of the Angels: it’s international, multicultural and billed as a collaboration between female “creators” in fashion and the arts.
In practice, that means listening to Campbell intone bad verse about goddesses while wearing a chainmail minidress, and I’m not entirely sure this counts as an improvement. It also doesn’t fix the fundamental problem with Victoria’s Secret, which is as much about the product as the presentation.
Women, increasingly, are turning away from what Victoria’s Secret has to offer. It’s true that smaller rival brands like Savage X Fenty (founded by Rihanna) and Skims (from Kim Kardashian) do inclusivity more convincingly than Victoria’s Secret. More importantly, though, they do underwear that’s not actively unpleasant to wear.
Victoria’s Secret designs are a throwback to an era when discomfort was a badge of pride. If your G string wasn’t causing you a gynaecological incident, and your bra wasn’t hoisting your boobs to nose level — well, you just weren’t trying hard enough. Women had started to tire of this before Covid, but lockdown had the final say on our willingness to suffer for hotness.
Besides, “sexy” and “comfy” don’t have to be opposites. Improved fabrics mean you don’t have to choose between lingerie that makes you look good and lingerie that threatens to graze a rib. Victoria’s Secret is trying to convince women they need an “everyday” push-up bra: meanwhile, an £18 John Lewis soft cup bralette is flying off the racks.
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There is a cautionary tale in the Victoria’s Secret story. Plastering progressive symbolism on to your brand isn’t going to save you if there’s no substance to what you’re selling. The problem with Victoria’s Secret, as my grandma might have put it, is that it’s all fur coat and no knickers.
