VICTORIA’S SECRET. The bold capital letters contrast with the store’s light and dark pink striped entrance. The store itself has a distinct aesthetic, brazen with pink colors, displaying organized mannequins and color-coordinated stacks of clothes and undergarments. But the brand’s mission is another story. Victoria’s Secret is well known for its lingerie; however, its reputation continues to suffer as more and more scandals are brought into the limelight—With their scandals resulting in the possible cancellation of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
The Victoria’s Secret Fashion show is an annual show that is broadcasted on television to promote and market the brand’s new goods and sleepwear. The first show was in 1995, and the shows have continued to run for the last two decades. However, last year’s 2018 fashion show received its lowest ratings ever. While 3.3 million viewers is a large amount, the previous year had 5 million viewers. The numbers have been consistently dropping each year since 2013. For anyone who has not seen the show, you can often see slim and tall models dancing and walking on a runway with their angel wings and lingerie. There is little diversity in the array of models. They are predominantly white with a sprinkle of some color. Besides the lack of racial diversity, there is absolutely no body diversity as well. Victoria’s Secret continues to idealize thinness as the beauty standard. This is extremely discouraging, especially in America, a country where the average bra size for women is a 34DD and clothing size is 12 to 14. The brand has yet to have plus-sized models in the shows. In response to the 2018 fashion show, Ashley Graham, a plus-sized model, subtly called out the brand by posting several photos of women of all races, shapes, and sizes with the hashtag #BeautyBeyondSize.
Even before the 2018 fashion show, the brand got itself into trouble with its transphobic and fatphobic comments. Edward Razek, the brand’s Chief Marketing Officer, made these offensive remarks in an interview with Vogue. In response to a question about diversity, Razek responded by saying, “So it’s like, why don’t you do 50? Why don’t you do 60? Why don’t you do 24? It’s like, why doesn’t your show do this? 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. It’s a 42-minute entertainment special”. This is just a snippet of what Victoria’s Secret has been embodying and supporting over the past few decades.
The brand has had its fair share of controversies and the possible cancellation of its show may be the tip of the iceberg. Shanina Shaik, a model that has appeared in several fashion shows, revealed that, “Unfortunately, the Victoria’s Secret Show won’t be happening this year. They’re trying to work on branding and new ways to do the show”. This cancellation may be one of the best decisions that the brand has made in the past few years.
In recent months, the brand has tried to “make things right”. After many customers boycotted the stores and many of the company’s employees resigned, the brand hired a new CEO, John Mehas, president of Tory Burch. The brand also recently hired its first-ever openly transgender model, Valentina Sampaio. To top it off, Razek resigned right after this announcement. While the cancellation of the 2019 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is not yet confirmed, the brand seems to be heading in the right direction. However, 2019 is still not over, and there is no way to predict what the future holds for Victoria’s Secret. For now, we can only patiently wait.
