‘Victoria Secret: Angels and Demons’ Explores the Brand’s Past
A new Hulu documentary takes a peek behind the curtain of America’s most recognizable lingerie retailer, revealing it to be not quite what we thought.
The three-part series, whose first episode debuted in 2022, chronicles the company’s rise and subsequent decline. It traces how founder Les Wexner created and marketed the “Victoria Secret dream woman,” a genteel English rose with a saucy continental side (as evidenced by the lingerie company’s internal branding videos, which must be seen to be believed). The series also examines Wexner’s past dealings with the convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein—and how the company may have turned a blind eye to harassment and assault allegations against the models it employed.
Victoria’s Secret rose from a mom-and-pop shop in 1977 to an empire with billions in annual sales, an international network of stores and catalog outlets, and the famous annual fashion show broadcast worldwide. Wexner’s success was built on the premise that women are attracted to scantily clad sexy supermodels—the infamous “Angels.” The company portrayed these beauties as sexy, strong, and intelligent, with the promise of an ideal body: train like Olympic athletes, eat like a hamster, and zap your body hair, and you can have the Victoria’s Secret physique.
During its peak, the annual fashion show was broadcast in over 100 countries to millions of viewers, and the brand’s “Angels” were supermodels such as Stephanie Seymour, Heidi Klum, and Gisele Bundchen, strutting in ever-tinier bits of lace and satin and mesh down a runway. But over time, the sparkle lost its shine as more body-positive brands such as Aerie and ThirdLove took market share. And then, in 2018, the lingerie giant’s bottom line started to slip—with the company’s stock losing value and its flagship stores closing.
Jan Singer, who joined the company in 2016 as CEO after a decade at Nike and a stint at Spanx, was charged with turning things around—and she had no small task ahead of her. The company’s sales began to falter, and it was slow to adjust its inventory from padded and push-up bras to bralettes and sports bras—missing out on an important trend. Plus, its ad campaigns have faced backlash for featuring stick thin, largely white models.
The series follows the rocky road to recovery, as Victoria’s Secret attempts to rebrand itself as an empowering company that aims to support and empower all women. But it’s still a behemoth company founded on the ignorance of outdated beauty standards, and Tyrnauer’s docuseries doesn’t shy away from examining how that myopia may have ultimately led to its downfall. Until it learns to do better, the brand will continue to face backlash and a shrinking target market. And if that continues, the company may have no choice but to close up shop entirely.