Over the past few years, brands such as Aerie worked towards promoting self-love and body positivity for all women. During this same time, Victoria’s Secret continued hosting their annual fashion show, promoting an unrealistic beauty standard of exclusively tall, skinny, fit women.
Since the fashion show’s cancellation in 2019, Victoria’s Secret has done some serious rebranding, in order to effectively make the brand more socially aware, this includes the production of their newest collection “Love Cloud” along with the reconsideration of their management team.
There was a wide variety of issues that contributed to the fall of the Victoria’s Secret empire, their lack of realistic models being one of the most obvious contributors. Critics have stated that by having these typically perfect models, or “angels” as the brand calls them, Victoria’s Secret was defining femininity for the male gaze, rather than for a woman’s personal self-confidence.
When asked about the lack of diversity within Victoria’s Secret angels in 2018, the chief marketing officer at the time, Edward Razek stated that they had considered having plus-sized, or transgender models in the show but decided against it because “the show it a fantasy.” Razek then apologized and retired in 2019 and the same day, the company hired their first openly transgender model. Leslie Wexner, the chief and founder of the parent company to Victoria’s Secret, L Brands, did not help this case as when he was asked about the same topic, he had said “Nobody goes to a plastic surgeon and says, ‘Make me fat.’”
It was later discovered circa 2020 that Razek and Wexner, both contributed to harassment, misogyny, and bullying within the company towards their angles and employees. Additionally, around the same time, investigations began regarding the close ties Wexner had to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who managed a large amount of Wexner’s billion-dollar estate and was considered to be a very close personal friend. Furthermore, Epstein utilized his position of power and connection to Victoria’s Secret in order to entice young women into sexual acts by acting as a recruiting officer for the brand.
Victoria’s Secret’s downfall can be reflected in their sales as they dropped to $5.4 billion in 2020 from $7.7 billion in 2015. However, the brand has rebounded stronger than expected, with a variety of new business strategies such as shifting more towards online sales, and most importantly, the promotion of their new message which is sexy for all, rather than sexy for a few.
On Valentine’s Day of 2022, Victoria’s Secret released their newest collection “Love Cloud” centred around more comfortable bras and underwear rather than the classic “bombshell push-up bra” Victoria’s Secret was previously known for. The brand strives to change the once limiting image of attraction they previously advertised. On top of this, “Love Cloud” stars a wide variety of both professional and amateur models from several walks of life including Celilo Miles, a firefighter, Miriam Blanco, the brand’s first disabled model, and several others including TikTok star Remi Bader, and Sofía Jiaru.
Remi Bader is a 26-year-old fashion influencer who was recently recruited as an ambassador and a size consultant at Victoria’s Secret in order to promote body positivity. One of the main reasons Bader joined the team was because of their dedication to improving the inclusivity of the brand as self-acceptance is a subject that is largely tackled within Bader’s online content. The partnership has already inspired the release of Victoria’s Secret PINK’s XXL swimwear which would be their first size expansion launch.
Peurto Rican model Sofia Jiaru is the first model with downs syndrome to join Victoria’s Secret modelling team. Jiaru has her own online store called “Alavett”, or “I love it” in English, and features several accessories designed by Jiaru herself. She started modelling in 2019 and since then, she has already modelled for several designers such as Marisa Santiago who asked her to walk the runway at New York Fashion Week in 2020. This is an incredibly positive step forward in the development of Victoria’s Secret as when the company was managed by Wexner and Razek, this would have never occurred.
Currently, L Brand’s board of directors is run by nearly all women, led by Donna James and the only man on the seven-person board being Martin Waters, Victoria’s Secret’s CEO. With the announcement of the new board of directors, the brand also began the VS Collective which is a new diverse group of representatives who will work towards advertising the brand in a way that is more socially aware and will overall shape the new values of the brand.
This overall transition promoting women empowerment in comparison to the misogyny and exclusivity the brand once promoted displays a positive future for the brand’s inclusion and representation towards support for all women.
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