THE NEW VICTORIA’S SECRET: WHAT HAS REALLY CHANGED?
DENIZ AKKAYA
On November 21, 2019 it was officially announced that after 23 years, lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret is cancelling its annual fashion show. Now, they’re back with a lot of new promises. But, can they win us back?
L Brands—the company that owns VS—said the decision was part of a move to “evolve the messaging of [the company].” While CFO Stuart Burgdoerfer said the brand will continue to communicate with customers via social media and other campaigns, it’ll be “nothing similar in magnitude to the fashion show.”
Victoria’s Secret and its annual show have long been called out for a lack of inclusivity and diversity on the runway. While the brand has made small strides in racial inclusivity over the years—with models of colour making up almost 50% of the cast for 2017’s Shanghai show, according to Glamour the lingerie brand has had a tougher time coming into the 21st century when it comes to body diversity. Which is seriously frustrating, considering the majority of the population doesn’t look like any of the VS “angels”. For the 2018 show, Hungarian model Barbara Palvin was named one of the show’s newest angels and was heralded on social media as the show’s first plus size model. SHE IS SIZE 4!!!
And it’s time for the most horrible part of their inevitable cancellation, in 2018 the brand’s chief marketing officer Ed Razek retired from his role after making super problematic comments about plus-size and transgender models to Vogue. He told the publication: “It’s like, why doesn’t your show do this? Shouldn’t you have transsexuals in the show? No, I don’t think we should. Well, why not? Because the show is a fantasy. It’s a 42-minute entertainment special.” In the same interview, he also inferred that the use of pregnant models in Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty show was “pandering.” YIKES.
Now, the company is trying to win back women by rebranding as a company that prioritizes comfort and body positivity over male attention and hourglass figures. In June, the brand announced that it was relaunching with new ambassadors. Named the “Victoria’s Secret Collective,” the set of models, activists, athletes, and entertainers, which include women like Paloma Elsesser, Megan Rapinoe, and Priyanka Chopra, will collaborate with the company to design collections that fit women’s needs and tailor them to a more diverse customer base. “We got it wrong, we lost relevance with the modern woman, and she told us very clearly to change our focus from how people look, to how people feel, from being about what he wants to being about what she wants and to support her in her narrative, in whatever way that she chooses,” said Martin Waters, CEO of VS&Co, Victoria’s Secret new parent company, in a statement provided to Refinery29. “So to win her back, we’ll celebrate and inspire her, and we’ll support her desire to show up however it is that she chooses.” Waters shared a similar statement during an investor meeting in July of 2021.
Last week, Bella Hadid’s decision to join the new era of the angels were all over the news and it was quite confusing to be honest. Despite telling Vogue in 2018 that it had always been a dream for her to walk for Victoria’s Secret, the reality was quite different. Publicly separating herself from the infamous lingerie retailer last year after years as a catwalk regular alongside her sister, Hadid joined a slew of others in denouncing the toxic culture that VS seemed to stand for. Bella admitted that the first time she really felt powerful walking the runway in her underwear was when she worked for Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty extravaganza during New York Fashion Week. “Rihanna’s amazing. For me, that was the first time on a runway that I felt really sexy. Because when I first did Fenty, I was doing other lingerie shows and I never felt powerful on a runway, like, in my underwear.”
Working with the reimagined brand appeals to Hadid, who says that she really believes in the brand’s new mission. “It has been a few years since I’ve done anything with Victoria’s Secret,” she pointed out to Marie Claire. “What magnetised me to coming back was them coming to me and really proving to me that, behind the scenes, Victoria’s Secret has changed so drastically… There was a type of way that, I think, a lot of us women who used to work with Victoria’s Secret felt. And now, six of the seven board members are all female. And there [are] new photoshoot protocols that we have. So, a lot has changed,” she continued.
Why does she feel like the situation would be different now, that she’d feel powerful, Marie Claire questioned? “[Joining the VS Collective] was really about taking my power back and having the power over my body be released to myself again,” Hadid replied. “I think the beauty of what Victoria’s Secret is as a collective is about the conversation. All of us together, Paloma [Elsesser], Adut [Akech], when we sit on set, we’re just grateful for how we feel supported now, instead of how we used to feel, when it was a lingerie company that used to be run by men for men… I just look around [on set] and I feel empowered again.”
Speaking out about the brand “was not an opportunity to take a company down” for Hadid, it was “an opportunity to uplift and change the way women are being seen”, as she puts it. “We don’t need to show parts of our body that we don’t want to show. That’s really important for us as women, because sometimes, going into these sets, we do lose our boundaries. And our boundaries are not accepted. So, for them to tell us that we do have that power over our bodies and ourselves – and if we don’t feel comfortable with something we can speak out – that’s super important.”
Only time will tell whether these steps are sincere or a pr effort to exist in the new world.
