The Rise and Fall of Victoria’s Secret

“What do you mean ‘the rise and fall of Victoria’s Secret?’ They didn’t fall!

…did they?”

That’s right, Victoria’s Secret is no longer the Queen of lingerie. 

What was once the dominant name in women’s underwear is now a fraction of what it once was. Slow adaptations to an evolving market, sudden and frequent leadership changes, and a handful of controversies have all but ended Victoria’s Secret’s once unshakeable reign. 

The rise and fall of Victoria’s Secret has been a business tale of immense success, missed opportunities, and poor decisions. 

Hey, at least we got Tyra Banks and Heidi Klum out of it. 

An Awkward Trip To The Bra Store

American businessman Roy Raymond needed to buy a bra for his wife. Why she didn’t or couldn’t buy herself a bra isn’t really part of the story for some reason. Frankly, it’s mildly impressive that a man in the 1970s knows his wife’s bra size and is willing to go out and buy it. 

I digress…

Raymond apparently had an awkward experience buying a bra for his wife. He was so uncomfortable he thought,

“I should start a bra business.”

So, in 1977, Raymond founded a women’s underwear shop targeting male consumers. He named it Victoria’s Secret.

How did he come up with the name? Who is Victoria? And what is her secret? Slate writer Naomi Barr eloquently explained in 2013:

“Raymond imagined a Victorian boudoir, replete with dark wood, oriental rugs, and silk drapery. He chose the name Victoria to evoke the propriety and respectability associated with the Victorian era: outwardly refined, Victoria’s ‘secrets’ were hidden underneath.” 

And just like that, Victoria’s Secret was born. 

Enter Wexner – A Businessman’s Businessman

By 1982, Victoria’s Secret was raking in an annual $4 million but was at risk of bankruptcy. To save what he saw as a potentially profitable brand, businessman’s businessman Les Wexler of Limited Brands (now L Brands) swooped in to lead the lingerie company. 

Wexner took Raymond’s concept of a women’s underwear store for men and thought, 

“Nahhhh, let’s do something else.”

The immensely successful Wexner took Raymond’s vision and flipped it. Taking inspiration from the European lingerie market (specifically La Perla), Wexner rebranded Victoria’s Secret not for men but for women. 

The idea that women’s lingerie could be for women was a fresh idea. In less than a decade, Victoria’s Secret was the largest lingerie retailer in the U.S. with 350 stores nationally and sales topping $1 billion.

And then came the fashion show…

The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show Is Born

In 1995, Victoria’s Secret annual fashion show made its debut. The idea that you could have a fashion show focused entirely on women’s underwear was a foreign concept. Ed Razek, L Brand’s longtime chief marketing officer, stepped in to run the show. 

He and his team handpicked each model (as opposed to ordering them in bulk?) to walk the runway. The vision for a new kind of fashion show was taking off. It quickly became an iconic staple of Victoria’s Secret, launching the careers of Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Gisele Bündchen, and many others.

The Victoria’s Secret “Angels” came into play after a commercial promoting its Angels underwear collection aired in 1997. 

“Angel” almost immediately became synonymous with the Victoria’s Secret brand. 

The Angels Flew High…

In 1999, the fashion show aired online for the first time. 1.5 million viewers tuned in and crashed the site. Victoria’s Secret broke the internet long before Kim Kardashian’s fat ass did. 

From there, the show only got increasingly lavish. The Victoria’s Secret Annual Fashion Show was THE fashion show to see. 

In 2000, Tom Brady’s future wife wore a $15 million dollar diamond and ruby-encrusted Fantasy Bra at the show. 

It’s hard to imagine a fashion show more extravagant than a bra worth more than some country’s GDP, but Victoria’s Secret kept going. 

Products like the Miracle Bra and Body by Victoria became blockbusters in their own right. Bras never sold so well. 

In 2000, Sharen Jester Turney hopped on as CEO of Victoria’s Secret Direct. She made some critical changes to Victoria’s Secret catalog – less Playboy more Vogue. Six years later, Turney took over as CEO of the whole brand. Under her tenure, Victoria’s Secret thrived. Sales increased by 70% to $7.7 billion. 

Victoria’s Secret was officially the Queen of lingerie. 

…But Too Close To The Sun

Starting in 2015, sales began to falter due to a significant shift in the market. Body positive/inclusive brands like Aerie, ThirdLove, and Lively, emerged to snag a sizeable share of the lingerie market. 

In 2016, Turney abruptly stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Wexner as interim CEO. 

In a couple of swift, ruthless business moves, Wexner killed the catalog, swimwear, and apparel to focus exclusively on lingerie (the bread and butter of Victoria’s Secret). He then split Victoria’s Secret into three distinct companies with their own respective CEOs: 

Victoria’s Secret Lingerie, Victoria’s Secret Beauty, and Pink (the VS brand aimed at teens). 

After these major changes, Jan Singer entered as the new CEO. Two years later, she would resign after showrunner Razek angered the internet over his comments on trans and plus-size models. 

By this time, the iconic fashion show severely dipped in viewership and the company’s market share had dropped from 33% to 24%. 

In 2019, John Mehas took over as CEO and had a very angry board to deal with. James A Mitarotonda, CEO of Barington and Victoria’s Secret board member wrote in a letter:

“Victoria’s Secret’s brand image is starting to appear to many as being outdated and even a bit ‘tone deaf’ by failing to be aligned with women’s evolving attitudes towards beauty, diversity, and inclusion.”

The company made attempts to be relevant once again. Raznek “resigned” the day the company hired its first trans model, Valentina Sampaio. They also hired a “body-inclusive” model Barbara Palvin. 

And, on November 2, 2019, the iconic Victoria’s Secret Annual Fashion Show was canceled. 

Once the trendsetter, Victoria’s Secret was now playing catch up. And it may have been too late. 

Yikes on Bikes – The Epstein Connection

Just when Victoria’s Secret was in the middle of a critical rebranding, they got caught up in the Epstein scandal. 

Uh oh.

As he did with many, many wealthy business folks, Epstein managed Wexner’s finances. That connection proved to be a harmful one, as Epstein would use his connection to Victoria’s Secret as a means of coercing his victims into sexual acts. 

Gross, right? 

“At some point in your life we are all betrayed by friends, 

“Being taken advantage of by someone who was so sick, so cunning, so depraved, is something that I’m embarrassed I was even close to. 

“But that is in the past.”

This was the last thing Victoria’s Secret needed. 

In 2020, Wexner stepped down as chairman and CEO of L Brands and sold a majority stake in Victoria’s Secret. By the end of the year, 250 Victoria’s Secret and Pink stores permanently closed. 

A Body Inclusive Victoria’s Secret?

Victoria’s Secret’s latest attempts to be body-inclusive or body-positive are coming across as late, to put it diplomatically. Nobody bought into their attempts to celebrate diverse bodies. They lacked the credibility after decades of promoting one body type. 

Kate Moss was out and Lizzo was in. 

Victoria’s Secret was too little, too late in their attempts to catch up with an evolving market. They failed to adapt when the time came and their sales suffered because of it. 

Does Victoria’s Secret Have A Future?

Last year, Victoria’s Secret had a small bump in online sales. They swapped their iconic Angels for activists and entrepreneurial women. 

As a company, Victoria’s Secret is in recovery mode. Under new leadership, the lingerie giant is sailing on its own. Whether or not the brand finds a new identity in a very different fashion world is up for speculation. 

There are lessons to be learned from the rise and fall of Victoria’s Secret: always have a sense for an evolving market and adapt sooner rather than later.