When Victoria’s Secret announced in August 2021 that it was doing a rebranding after years of declining sales and declining cultural credibility — that it would become a champion of female empowerment and replace its bevy of supermodel angels with the US Collective, ten women with great achievements as well as different ages and body types – the news was generally (and understandably) met with raised eyebrows.
The former home of high-kitsch male fantasy would become… the new Betty Friedan? It was hard to imagine.
Well, now a new one advertising campaign that “celebrating today’s Victoria’s Secret,” as a spokeswoman said, is here, promising “we’ve changed” and “we’ll see you” and featuring women of different skin tones, ages, shapes and abilities, who look super comfy in simple silks bras and panties.
Guess what? A lot of people don’t like the new look either, and took it over Twitter complain.
It’s too ‘utilitarian’. Nobody wants such boring underwear. The message it sends, one observer said, is that inclusivity is not glamorous. Bring back the wings – but put them on everyone!
Bring back the wings? Seriously?
It’s been just over two years since Leslie H. Wexner, the founder of L Brands and the man who built Victoria’s Secret into a behemoth, stepped down as chairman and chief executive of the company after his ties to Jeffrey Epstein were revealed. Just two and a half years ago, Victoria’s Secret canceled its famous babes-in-thongland fashion show in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
And yet it seems like a massive psychological event has happened and half the world has forgotten the conversation about why US, as it is now known, had to change in the first place.
Forgetting that walking around in stilettos, bikini bottoms and a push-up bra with a balloon skirt on your heinie (like the models did in a show) wasn’t exactly anyone’s dream outfit. Forgot the wings could weigh up to 30lbs and adult females looked like naughty putti. That such pointless outfits were part of what created a culture where men in power (including men in power at Victoria’s Secret) saw the young women around them as toys to do what they wanted.
That bringing those outfits back in an inclusive way just advocates objectification of equal opportunity, and there’s nothing glamorous about that.
For anyone who needs help remembering, there’s “Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons,” a three-part documentary from director Matt Tyrnauer that airs on Hulu just in time for the new campaign. It shows how the business of the mythical Victoria – a well-behaved Brit with a bit of a sensual side – came to angels emerging from a spaceship in silver bomber jackets with laser cannons and matching underwear sets.
While the documentary doesn’t really answer the questions it raises, which have to do with Mr. Epstein, Mr. Wexner, and what exactly their relationship was (usually the talking heads are essentially saying “who knows?” and raising their eyebrows to make sense) , it effectively tracks the progress of the brand. How it went from a tasteful catalog company to an acceptable soft-core entertainment vehicle to what it is today.
How it went from a psychologically stalking horse to all our complicated feelings and frustrations about what exactly “sexy” means, and how to break through a form and mindset that’s been ages in the making. That’s why the rebrand has finally struck such a nerve.
The truth is that there is no single answer and certainly no single brand with the answer to what is sexy because that is up to each individual. Yet the dominant images of lingerie are still those of binaries and extremes. It’s thongs and naughty maids on Jessica Rabbit bodies or comfy cotton underwear in neutral tones on many bodies. Victoria’s Secret, the old version, or Dove and Aerie.
(To be fair, a lot of people find sexy just plain and comfortable. As Megan Rapinoe, the soccer player and activist who is a member of the USA collective, told DailyExpertNews why she agreed to join in: “I think functionality probably the sexiest thing we can achieve in life. Sometimes just cool is sexy too.”)
In fact, the brands that are often held up as an alternative — Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty and Kim Kardashian’s Skims — fall pretty neatly into these two categories stylistically. The first is all maximum provocation in its gameplay, the second mostly minimal wabi-sabi (even if Skims, with its new swimwear ads featuring the recently divorced Mrs. Kardashian as a camp California Stepford woman, seems to be evolving into more cinematic territory. ).
And because those lines have celebrity female founders, the ones who are famously sexy themselves, they are somehow treated as different. The theory seems to be that since the money she earns empowers a woman who publicly owns her own sexuality, that potency trickles down to the consumers they serve.
Perhaps. Or maybe the real benefit of all this is that no person or brand or size or shape is allowed to say what’s sexy – and that should be seen as a good thing.
That sexy ultimately has to do with feeling comfortable in your own skin, rather than in a single piece of clothing. That there are as many definitions of the term as there are people in the world. And that actual empowerment doesn’t come in a bra and panty set. It comes out.