Clumsy effort to woke-wash

Last week Victoria’s Secret, whom my 14-yearold self idolised as the epitome of elasticated eroticism, killed the famous Victoria’s Secret Angels. Yep, that’s right. In a marketing move more transparent than a mesh G-string, it’s ditched the emaciated, ethereal beauties in rhinestone tooth floss. Instead it’s replaced them with ambassadors who’re athletes, activists and actresses. It also wokewashed its advertising strategy and declared its new mission is to ‘‘become the world’s leading advocate for women’’. Well, that’s a relief.

I’m glad that the complex, ongoing fight for gender equality will now be led by purveyors of pink polyester panties. I needed some advice on pay equality from a $10 diamante-clad bustier.

Seriously though, what is going on? It feels like every time I walk into an undies shop now I get a lecture in instagram-level feminism from a G-banger.

Now, I know what’s going on in VS’s case. The battered bra behemoth has seen sales slump as it suffocates under its (rightful) reputation as a pale, stale, male brand that pushes outdated, unrealistic beauty standards on young women. (And the fact its product is mediocre, its management toxic, and it’s basically a lacy metaphor for those irritating blokes who start sentences with, ‘‘Well, men prefer . . .’’. So it panicked, ‘pivoted’, and produced . . . this mess.

It’s not the only company to do so. Everything from toothpaste to yoghurt markets to women with #empowerment. And no industry does it more than lingerie. Everyone from the pubescent Playboy-glam of Bras N Things through to once raucously debauched Agent Provocateur is telling us our undies need to be empowering, liberating or ‘‘my choice’’.

Now, I know they’re trying to give the power over women’s sensuality back to women. But it’s just bounced from one extreme to another – going from lectures in sexy to lectures in feminism. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not the feminist ethos I object to. I’m a feminist, love feminist writing and thinking, and could listen to Roxane Gay sell me anything. That’s the point though. If I’m looking for feminist wisdom, I’d turn to her. Not my underwear drawer.

Idon’t need to. Any woman with half a brain knows it’s not her underwear that defines her power, independence or femininity. She doesn’t need to look to her knickers for moral guidance. She can wear Jane Austen bloomers or PVC crotchless chaps with bells on and it wouldn’t matter. (Except at the gym, when I recommend breathable cotton.)

And it’s annoying to have your underwear rebranded with a moral message. For a start, it’s such a flimsy, see-through attempt at woke washing that it makes the whole, real, glorious realm of feminist thinking feel cheaper and nastier than a $5 lace bra. But also because, even if it wasn’t such a blatant marketing strategy, the feminism they’re spouting is so diluted and brain dead that it’s actively irritating. (It’s not empowering to just shout the word over and over again ever more loudly.)

However, what makes my skin itch furiously with anger is that this is a cop-out. A truly, deeply, genuinely liberating move for the lingerie world would be to say, screw it, girls, your undies should just be fun. Wear a sequined wetsuit. Or vintage satin drawers. Or nothing but a single, orange ostrich feather. Wear whatever you want. Just make it gloriously enjoyable. Not be strangled by dated male ideas of sexy or sanctimonious woke diatribes on enlightenment.

See, what if our undies weren’t battlegrounds for society’s eternal, agonising moral wrestling over femininity, sex and power? Now that would be truly #empowering.