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Victoria’s Secret had an impactful influence on fashion, beauty, and culture in the last decade of the 90s and the first two decades of the 2000s. This lingerie empire was founded in 1977 by American businessman Roy Raymond, and was bought five years later by Leslie Wexner for $1 million.
In the late '90s and early 2000s, the brand hit its peak by leveraging sexual marketing, angel wings, and the rise of high models becoming celebrities that people saw on the cover of magazines, music videos, and movies. But as Heidi Klum —one of the high-profile models who walked down the Victoria’s Secret runway—said before every Project Runway show “In fashion one day you are in, and the next day, you are out”.
In 2017-2018, the lingerie empire faced allegations about refusing to cater to plus-size models and transgender women. These arguments were sustained by the models that walked on the runway during the shows, and the models hired for their campaigns, website, and social media content.
The crisis escalated when the now-former chief marketing officer Ed Razek used the outdated and offensive term "transexual" and stated that when people ask "Shouldn’t you have transsexuals in the show? No. No, I don’t think we should. Well, why not? Because the show is a fantasy."
Amidst the rage that these remarks triggered, high-profile models showed support for the transgender community on social media, and the noise of the scandal spread like wildfire.
In 2019, Razek stepped down after the accusations of misogyny and creating a culture of harassment escalated. This was a pivotal moment for Victoria's Secret. The fashion shows that once reached millions of viewers around the world were now suspended indefinitely as the lingerie empire suffered a crisis from within that needed a significant reform of values. Additionally, these were the early years of Rihanna's Fenty lingerie and Skims —two brands that offered comfort and sexiness for a range of bodies. These two brands built their empires around the premise of inclusion while Victoria's Secret was being pointed out for its practices of exclusion.
The fashion show viewership plummeted from 9.7 million in 2013 to 3.3 million in 2018.
Six years passed since the last Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
Over the six years of absence, Victoria's Secret has invested in innovation to pursue a path that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive. This is a need that lingerie customers have in today's world but one that brands like Victoria's Secret resisted until the very last minute. Offering a broad size range is not cheap and it is not easy. In order to control the quality of the products, there needs to be a diligent sample-making process in which designers ensure that the design keeps its form and flattering components as the sizes go up or down. Adding a new size to the catalog is not adding half an inch around the pattern and calling it a day. That’s why many fashion brands are still skeptical about expanding the range of their sizes.
As Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show 2024 was announced, there were expectations about addressing the lack of diversity and fixing the hurtful narrative that there’s only one way to be a pretty woman in America.
Let's recap the highlights of the show, the accomplishments in terms of inclusion, and whether this would guarantee the rise of Victoria's Secret once again.
Celebrating the beauty of natural hair
During the six years of VS’s absence on the runway, the conversations around welcoming natural hair in the workplace, schools, and social settings have expanded. The argument is not about dictating what hairstyles must be followed at all times for all women. It is about, acknowledging the beauty of the hair of every woman without wigs, extensions, or painful chemical treatments. It was very refreshing to see several models walking down the runway with their natural hair with an attitude of confidence and looking as stunning as Victoria’s Secret’s angels have always looked.
This is a powerful message in the fashion industry where even the most high-profile Black celebrities have stated there is a “pattern” of hairstyles that Black celebrities must follow. Celebrity stylist Law Roach states in his latest book How to Build a Fashion Icon, that Megan Thee Stallion was hesitant to wear her natural hair for her return to the Vanity Fair Party in 2022, but it was a matter of confidence and being able to show her authentic self that ultimately pushed her to wear her hair this way.
Celebrating ALL women
Supermodels represent a specific era in fashion. In the 90s, Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell defined the edgy glam. In the 2000s, Heidi Klum, Kate Moss and Adriana Lima became supermodels and celebrities as their names became well known on the runways and magazines.
There is the generation of Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner, and Cara Delevinge, who carry a unique personality and almost a brand within each of them that allows them to monetize out of their name and social media presence.
It may seem as though the big model names from the 90s and 2000s have no business in 2024. However, the show was able to create this almost time capsule moment that transported the viewers from the 2010s and 2000s and got them excited by seeing Victoria's Secret angel legends such as Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio walking down the runway.
It was a moment of nostalgia to celebrate the now-retired high-profile models. Still, it was also an important message to show bodies older than 30 in spectacular lingerie and carrying wings to fly.
A very common mistake in the path towards inclusive fashion is that fashion companies can make a quick 180-degree change that moves around the history and legacy of the company, and confuses their loyal base. It was very smart of Victoria's Secret to extend the umbrella of who falls under being a Victoria's Secret angel. Yes, it is still the Heidi Klums and Gigi Hadids of the world, but they are opening doors to curvy women and trans women. Including a demographic does not mean having to exclude another —especially when the admiration and identity of this lingerie empire were built on the idea of idealizing fashion models with wings walking on the runway.
Cher made a stunning performance of Believe at the Victoria’s Secret 2024 Fashion Show.
What’s missing?
Inclusion is a method to practice fashion. Inclusion is not a goal to achieve. A platform as visible and as influential as the Victoria’s Secret fashion show can leverage the real beauty of every American women and create more diverse shows one year after the other. There is still so much more than American girls want to see on the screen: Victoria’s Secret angels who are Native American, Filipino, Middle Eastern, biracial, disabled, old, young, curvy, and petite. They want to see angels who look like them.
When fashion companies see inclusion as a strategy to make viewers, customers, and employees feel welcomed, rather than a chore in order to avoid getting cancelled, the result will be perceived more genuine and intentional. And the results could turn out to be bigger.
It seems as though there was a lot of hard work put into the hiring of the models and the making of the lingerie, which are important components of the show. But there is an opportunity here to dig deeper.
The Victoria's Secret fashion show was created to sell the idea of creating this fantasy of angelical beautiful women walking down the runway with lingerie. It is a show that really aimed to target male viewers as the customers were primarily women. But it is 2024 and we can build up on top of the fantasy of angelical women with a bow for the sake of pleasuring male viewers. There is an opportunity to show the personality, skills, identities, joy, and complexity of these hardworking models on these runways.
We saw on the runway women who own businesses, women who act, women who sing, women who influence, and women with diverse professional backgrounds who were obstructed by the feathers hanging on their back to be another Victoria's Secret angel for another year.
If Victoria's Secret wants to adapt to the lingerie business of the mid-2020s, they need to do so much more than diversify their model cast. They need to dig deeper into what are their true values in today's world, and what they can do to give women what they want and need through lingerie. They don't need fetishizing wings that won't make them fly, they need a space to use their voice and a path to walk forward as we continue to celebrate all kinds of beauties.
It is too soon to see where Victoria's Secret stands now.
Only time will determine what the future holds.
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