Victoria’s Secret | Autopsy of a missed image change

Its new brand image was supposed to boost its sales. More inclusive, less alluring, Victoria’s Secret nevertheless continues to lose revenue. Online, consumers are even calling for the return of angels and extravagant parades. Would selling dreams ultimately be more profitable?

Go woke, go broke?

“ I’m bringing sexy back “, said Justin Timberlake. It was more or less in these words that Victoria’s Secret executives hinted at the future of the brand during a recent presentation to investors. Despite its efforts to be more inclusive in recent years, the lingerie retailer continues to lose revenue. The company projects revenue of $6.3 billion in 2023, a significant drop from $7.5 billion in 2019 and $8.1 billion in 2018. According to an article in Business of Fashion which has been making the rounds on social networks, Victoria’s Secret wants to find its sex appeal. What will it look like? The brand remained vague. But right-wing media and commentators have already picked up the news, seeing it as irrefutable demonstration that companies that adopt progressive values ​​end up suffering (go woke, go broke).

1999

First Victoria’s Secret fashion show

1360

Number of Victoria’s Secret brand stores in 70 countries, according to the company. In North America: 837 in 2022; it was 1,177 in 2016, according to Statista.

12 millions

Number of viewers during the televised Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in 2001, a record year. There were only 3.3 million left in 2018.

To sell dreams

This is what the brand has done for decades and successfully. In one of its first advertising campaigns, models emerged from a cloud minimally clad in a balconette bra and a pair of white wings. “Victoria’s Secret embodied the idealized version of female beauty,” says Chantal Fernandez, independent journalist and co-author of a book on Victoria’s Secret to be published next year. That’s not all. The brand’s glamorous image also appealed to consumers. During its annual fashion show – which ended in 2019 – the brand offered the biggest pop stars, from Taylor Swift to The Weeknd. Watched by millions of people, the event sparked excitement… and bets! Which model would have the honor of wearing the $10 million diamond-encrusted bra? Who would receive their first wings, the ultimate consecration in the world of Victoria’s Secret? “Everyone knew the brand, especially in the United States. It was present in all the shopping centers,” emphasizes M.^me Fernandez.

A change is needed

At the height of its popularity, Victoria’s Secret did not see the tide turn. In the mid-2010s, its image no longer fits with the values ​​of the time. And the company’s revenues begin to decline. Consumers criticize the unattainable beauty standards that the brand promotes with its angels – the nickname given to its muses – who are extremely thin, but with generous curves. They’re demanding models that look like them, something other lingerie retailers, like Aerie and Thirdlove, understood long before. In the post #metoo era, alluring outfits on youthful-looking models suddenly seem out of place, especially since the company is run predominantly by men. Later, the relationship between Les Wexner, the businessman at the head of the Victoria’s Secret empire, and Jeffrey Epstein, convicted of trafficking minors, will be the subject of journalistic investigations. The brand no longer has a choice. To revive its sales and save its reputation, it must begin a radical image change.

Save the furniture

More inclusive, more sober too: put side by side, the Victoria’s Secret advertising campaigns of recent years no longer have much in common with its beginnings. On her social networks, wasp waists have given way to love handles, models made in the same mold to a diversity of sizes and shapes. Among its inclusion efforts, the lingerie retailer hired its first transgender model and named LGBTQ+ soccer player Megan Rapinoe as the face of the brand. More recently, Victoria’s Secret launched an underwear collection adapted for people with disabilities.

Bring back the angels?

It’s unclear to what extent the brand’s rebranding contributed to its loss of revenue. After all, consumer spending is declining in the United States, emphasizes Chantal Fernandez. However, the question is increasingly being asked: Should Victoria’s Secret bring back the angels and the extravagant parades? Online, thousands of Internet users are nostalgic for the brand’s heyday, criticizing its new direction. Even if it takes up a lot of space on social networks, the kind of discourse opposing inclusiveness and diversity rarely represents the majority, adds Stéfany Boisvert. That said, it is possible that Victoria’s Secret’s past continues to exert a power of attraction, even fascination, among consumers, without them advocating the return of starving models. “We live in a profoundly contradictory time in relation to the culture of beauty,” underlines the professor.