After a five-year hiatus, the Victoria’s Secret fashion show finally returned on Oct. 15, 2024. The runway was awash in pink, the angels’ wings were huge, every eye was smokey, and every garment was shiny and sheer. In some ways, the show was a classic return to form, with its bright sparkly visuals and iconic angels like Adriana Lima and Tyra Banks. However, in other ways the show was groundbreaking. 2024 included the show’s first all-female music lineup, featuring fan favorite first namers: Lisa, Tyla and Cher. The show was also more diverse than ever before, including trans models for the first time, a wider variety of sizes and body types, older women, and women of color with natural hair. All of these elements seemed to set the show up to be hugely successful; it was carefully crafted to appeal to young audiences and older fans alike. All of the models looked beautiful, all of the performances were breathtaking. And yet, the show seemed to be primarily met with skepticism. Why?
For one, it appears the quality of the show was largely irrelevant and public response would have been somewhat negative regardless. In the past few years, the brand has been plagued by controversy, including a New York Times exposé detailing harassment within the company and a Hulu series documenting the company’s connections to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Models and other employees were frequently body shamed at work and forced to maintain unhealthy and unrealistic body standards in order to keep their jobs. The models were sexually harassed and exploited; models were also encouraged to pose nude, often without pay, in the hopes it would help their careers or standing within the company. For years, there was no recourse for these women. It was simply accepted: this was the culture of the company, this was just what you had to go through to be a star. Since the news broke, many people have turned against the company, demanding justice and regarding its sickly sweet exterior with disgust.
In order to distract from the now well-known horrors the company perpetrated and regain some of their profits, Victoria’s Secret did what they could: a “woke rebrand.” The company replaced their typical advertisements (featuring thin white women in tight lingerie) with photos of women of all skin tones, in nude underwear, holding each other and smiling at the camera. The brand purports to be embracing inclusivity and putting women in control. They started a podcast called “VS Voices” and created a fund for women’s cancer research. They ran an ad campaign featuring queer soccer star Megan Rapinoe as if to say, “Look, gays! These bras aren’t just for the male gaze. You can buy them too!” The rebrand is all about embracing what women want, as long as what women want still provides monetary benefit to the corporation.
Some people are excited about the company’s new direction and hope for more positive change to come. Unfortunately for the brand, most people are fed up. Victoria’s Secret is just one name in a long list of brands co-opting social movements for profit. Consumers are now recognizing how disingenuous the messaging behind most liberal marketing is, and they’re no longer buying it.
It doesn’t help that most of the brand’s new promotional materials feature drab color palettes, boring pieces, and that many of the runway show’s models sported flat lifeless hair instead of gravity-defying curls and blowouts. This isn’t to imply any of the models are ugly; they’re all stunning. Nevertheless, their styling is so far removed from the traditional hyper femme aesthetic the company used to be built around. This does a disservice to more diverse models by depriving them of the beautiful, gaudy excess their thin white counterparts had access to, thereby implying femininity is reserved for thin white women. There is a place for models who look like real people in casual clothing and comfortable lived-in looks, but that place is not Victoria’s Secret. The execs at Victoria’s Secret seem to have come to the conclusion that the issue people had with the brand was its aesthetics, more so than its business practices. In their attempt to capture a new market, the brand has lost sight of what made it iconic in the first place.
Many modern women still want the glitz and glamor Victoria’s Secret used to be known for. Holding liberal beliefs hasn’t turned everyone into angry, burning, sex-hating feminists. Many feminists still want to wear bras, sometimes even scratchy synthetic push up bras. In fact, the current pop culture landscape shows people want horny hyperfemininity more than ever. Two of the biggest pop stars right now are Chapell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, who sing openly about sex while looking unabashedly over the top. Victoria’s Secret, on the other hand, is more reminiscent of Katy Perry. Once the platonic ideal of womanhood, both have fallen from grace due to their connections with abusers, both have had the authenticity of their progressivism questioned, and both have had their attempts to regain stardom rebuffed.
It’s not that people don’t want fun, campy seduction. It’s that they no longer want it provided through corrupt, corporatized means. For years, Victoria’s Secret and the men behind it decided what was sexy. Now, they don’t have that power anymore. People still want to be sexy, but they want it on their own terms. Victoria's real secret is … she’ll never be able to give them that.