Lingerie giant fails to grasp what women want
It’s been another bad week for bra behemoth Victoria’s Secret, capping off what’s been a pretty dismal few years for the ageing enterprise. This week the company’s toxic culture of misogyny and harassment was exposed by The New York Times, as Ed Razek, the former executive of L Brands, which owns Victoria’s Secret, was accused by multiple models of sexual harassment, sexism and blacklisting them when they resisted his salivating septuagenarian advances.
This comes hot on the high heels of the annual VS fashion show being cancelled last November amid ratings declining as fast as the company’s market share. (Sure, it’s still big in the US, but it fell from a 31.7 per cent market dominance in 2013 to just 24 per cent in 2019.) And of course this was all topped off in 2019 by news of chief executive Les Wexner’s creepy bromance with Jeffrey Epstein and saying the show shouldn’t cast transgender models because it was a ‘‘fantasy’’.
So all in all, it’s going through a slow, strungout public death, which has given people plenty of time and column inches to write about what’s caused the company to be #cancelled.
The most popular theory is that woke millennials and Gen Zers killed the brand, as we increasingly replace looking sexy with feeling comfy. The media has been declaring cleavage dead for years (which makes you wonder if they ever check Kim Kardashian’s IG feed . . .) and arguing that young women are no longer willing to pay huge amounts of money to look like turkeys trussed up in tulle and T strings.
The supposed proof of this is women’s declining Google search stats for ‘‘push-up bra’’ and skyrocketing searches for ‘‘bralette’’ or ‘‘comfort’’.
Once again, apparently, we’ve ruined everything from coffee to cleavage. And I get it, I do. The theory fits with our image as sexless, shapeless mom jean-sporting woke warriors who want everything from our KeepCups to our C cups to make a moral statement.
But it’s also wrong. It’s not us young’uns who gave VS its crystal-studded crucifixion. No, that blame lies firmly with pale, stale males like Razek and Wexner, who for too long have been producing this cheap, lazy version of female sexuality and expecting young women to buy into it because we want to please these cheap, lazy dudes.
Before we start, let’s just clear a few things up. Yes, women’s searches for comfy undies have skyrocketed in the past five years. But that’s not proof we’re swapping sexy for snuggly.
We’ve always had comfy-ugly undies and itchyfancy undies. The difference is that before we’d bulk buy our ugly-comfies from Farmers and wear them every day, and splurge on a pair of itchy-fancies to wear once a year. The lingerie industry has simply cottoned on and cashed in on the comfy-uglies market, offering us a slightly more chic everyday alternative.
But it’s not even as though we’re not buying sexy undies any more. Look at Honey Birdette, the Aussie brand known for its fun ‘‘what would a Bond Girl wear if she was filming on the GC’’ chic. It went from a solo store in Brizzy to a thriving global empire in the past 14 years while cleavage was supposedly ‘‘dead’’.
So no, sorry Boomers, it’s not our sexlessness that killed VS. We still want sexy. VS just does sexy badly, relying on old white men and their brittle ideas about female sexuality that poison everything fun about sex and fashion.
Basically, Victoria’s Secret is what happens if you give Michael Bay some scissors and put him in charge of costume design. Their principal design process seems to be that adding black lace and padding makes something hot.
It’s the same lazy mentality that you see in every part of society that deals with sex, from strip clubs to Hooters to the ‘‘hot girl’’ in the movie. Aka put a thin blonde chick in a push-up bra and nothing else matters.
It’s a sloppy and ultimately boring depiction of female sexuality. And it’s come about because the gatekeepers and architects of public sexy are still overwhelmingly men, specifically basic bros who think putting a bow on something makes it classy.
It’s not a coincidence that all of these industries with this uninspiring ideology are struggling as people want more vibrant and accurate depictions of sexy. But it’s especially unsurprising for VS, who aren’t even selling to other basic bros like Hooters is, but are selling to women who are bored with certain men mansplaining (badly) what hot looks like.
If VS want to make any money again, they need to realise this isn’t the 90s. We’re no longer prepared to buy from a company that starts every sentence with, ‘‘Well, men prefer . . .’’
VS just does sexy badly, relying on old white men and their brittle ideas about female sexuality that poison everything fun about sex and fashion.