“Go woke, go broke!” is a rather sad little mantra that people like to chant when a brand makes an ethical choice they disapprove of. This week, it was aimed at lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret (VS).
VS, the candy pink purveyors of synthetic fabrics, was mecca for teenage girls in the Noughties. Their super impractical designs, the fact that the shop felt like a mid-range brothel and the starvation Superbowl which was the Victoria’s Secret runway show all added up to a brand that girls couldn’t get enough of. And anyone who knows anything about sales will tell you that if you can hook women into a brand when they’re young, it’s easier to keep them for life.
But in 2018, Victoria hung up her angel wings. In the wake of Me Too, various allegations of sexism from men working at the company, problematic comments from its then CEO (who said he wouldn’t cast a trans or plus size woman because the show is “a fantasy”), and some associations with Jeffrey Epstein meant that it needed a rebrand.
It brought in diverse models like Brazilian model Valentina Sampaio who is a trans woman and Sofia Jirau who has Down’s syndrome. It got LGBT+ icon and footballer Megan Rapinoe to do a collection of sports bras. There were midsize models, tasteful black and white photography, a very planned, very concerted attempt to wash off the stains of the past and distance itself from the years of supermodels starving and purposefully dehydrating themselves to walk in their shows, or peddling thongs to preteens.
It didn’t really work. Sales didn’t improve, and revenue for 2023 is projected to be down £1.1bn since 2020, and so funnily enough all those “lessons” that the VS management have learned seem to have slipped away, and now we’re right back to punch-you-in-the-face sexy. Greg Unis, the brand executive with the unfortunate job of trying to back pedal on its last rebranding came out with a phrase which has got “we spent four days in a meeting room with a test audience” written all over it: “sexiness can be inclusive.” I presume “suspenders but make it social justice” was thrown out.
Going woke didn’t make VS go broke. Going woke on a paper thin surface level while creating the same product was what made it go “broke” (not that it’s actually insolvent). A perfect example of this disconnect was using plus and mid-size models, but on the website at time of writing the biggest size you can buy in most bras seems to be a DDD cup (equivalent to an E cup). The average UK woman is a 36DD, so anyone more than one size above average can’t easily shop at VS. What’s the point of using models to signal that you’re a safe space for all bodies, if once those bodies get into the store, they perhaps can’t actually buy anything?
It seems that Victoria’s Secret paid a handful of big cheques to famous people who weren’t Karlie Kloss or Adriana Lima and then called the job a good’un. This isn’t a case of go woke, go broke. It’s a case of doing a shit job on a rebrand and going broke.
There will be (already are, actually) plenty of voices claiming that this is about women hating sexiness, wanting to cover conventionally attractive women up and hide them from the world, a feminist distaste for beauty. But that’s just not true.
Feminism loves sexiness, feminists celebrate female beauty. The new Victoria Secret party line, that “sexiness can be inclusive” isn’t wrong, on that front. Sexiness absolutely can be inclusive. Rihanna’s underwear brand Savage x Fenty is a perfect demonstration of that. It’s hot, sexy, over the top lingerie for hot, sexy, over the top women, and it makes great money selling beautiful underwear that women actually want. Fenty doesn’t embrace diversity at a surface level, to earn points. It puts catering to a wide variety of women – including the ones who look like supermodels – at the core of its brand, and that works. So yes, sexiness can be inclusive, but I’m pretty sure Victoria’s Secret can’t be.
Rebecca Reid is a journalist, author and commentator
