Selling Sexy
Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon
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15
Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon
Ratings1
Average rating3
The story of how Victoria’s Secret skyrocketed from a tiny chain of boutiques to an intimates monolith with annual sales in excess of $6 billion—all the while defining female beauty and sex standards for generations of Americans—and how the brand's grip on the industry slipped. Victoria's Secret is one of the most influential, and polarizing, brands to ever infiltrate the psyche of the American consumer. The company’s catalog made national headlines in the ’70s for its glamorization of lingerie, which was, in the post-bra burning era, sold either by puritanical department stores or tawdry, red-light district shops. By 1984, the owners were forced to sell to Columbus retail magnate Les Wexner, who was swiftly building an empire that would shape retail as we knew it for the next 40 years. Just a decade later, Victoria's Secret was a billion-dollar brand, selling the majority of bras bought in the US. However, its ubiquity in underwear drawers couldn't compare to the influence it had on the greater culture, helping to define what it meant to look like a happy, successful—and most importantly, sexy—modern woman to a whole generation of consumers across the globe through its airbrushed advertisements, pink velvet-lined stores, and annual televised fashion show, which drew in millions of viewers each year. But as culture changed, Victoria's Secret did not change with it. Not only did the company miss out on big expansion opportunities it also refused to change its marketing as the world became less obsessed with thinness and perfection, and more keenly focused on body acceptance. Meanwhile, Wexner, the mastermind, became increasingly known for his complicated relationship with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, whose lifestyle he funded for many years. In March 2021, with his legacy in peril, Wexner and his wife Abigail stepped down from the Victoria's Secret board as he faced investigation by the FBI. Today, Victoria's Secret is trying to rebuild its reputation—and maintain the still-significant grip it has on the consumer. Selling Sexy expertly draws from sources within the company and across the fashion industry to examine: What happens now to a brand with such a heavy history?
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Morbidly interesting history of the white male definition of “sexy” as evidenced by the many iterations of Victoria's Secret starting with its origin as a lingerie mail-order catalog in 1977. Selling Sexy focuses on Les Wexner, the billionaire businessman who bought VS for a song, adding it to his empire of shopping mall staples such as The Limited, Bath & Body Works, and Abercrombie & Fitch. The authors profile the few women who had positions of power during Victoria Secret's reign, but it's obvious that Wexner really called the shots. In 2018, near the end of his long tenure as CEO, he dismissed customers over 35 as “old and fat” and therefore not worthy of VS attention. Sherman and Fernandez, experienced fashion and business reporters, mostly maintain a journalistic distance, but they gleefully end the book with Kim Kardashian's Skims shapewear more or less putting the nail in Victoria Secret's coffin.
