Victoria Secret’s New Campaign May Be Too Late

Lingerie giant Victoria’s Secret is trying to reinvent itself, ditching its hyper-sexualized image and focusing on inclusivity and letting customers define their own beauty. But the company’s new campaign may be too little too late, as rival brands are already reshaping how women see themselves.

Once synonymous with a lingerie show featuring an endless parade of glistening, tanned models happy to wink at the men cheering them on, Victoria’s Secret is trying to make over its image in the wake of rising sexual assault awareness and a fierce backlash against its long-held association with sex offenders like Jeffrey Epstein. It’s been a rough few years for the brand, which lost its billionaire founder Leslie Wexner in 2020 and teetered on bankruptcy in 2021 as same-store sales continued to decline.

The company’s turnaround efforts were hampered by a 2022 documentary series titled Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons, which probed Wexner’s connection with Epstein—who was later arrested for his role in a massive sex trafficking network. Wexner stepped down as CEO, but the scandal was too much to overcome.

New CEO John Mehas has been determined to revive the business and in 2023 launched a campaign called “My Body, My Self,” which featured real women who were photographed in their natural state without any retouching. In a follow-up video, Mehas encouraged women to celebrate their own bodies in the face of trolls and haters.

But some of Mehas’ other ideas have met with resistance. For instance, a campaign featuring plus-size models like Ashley Graham and Paloma Elsesser was a big hit, but a follow-up campaign with disabled and transgender models met with a backlash that resulted in some of the model’s fellow activists calling for her to resign from the board.

Mehas has also been criticized for his refusal to speak to the media during the 2023 fashion show, which was broadcast live from Brooklyn and featured a conveyor belt of major models like Joan Smalls, Irina Shayk, and Lila Moss wearing Victoria’s Secret-branded lingerie and walking in a pink fantasy world surrounded by the Empire State Building. The show was promoted with an image of the iconic store, a branded boat ferrying the audience to Brooklyn, and a lineup of high-profile musical artists including Tyra Banks, Selena Gomez, and Cher.

This year, the show returned with a focus on inclusion, including seven models with disabilities and the first transgender woman to walk in a Victoria’s Secret fashion show, Jasmine Sanders. The brand also swapped its signature sexy wings for a more earthy, featherless look following a conversation with Peta US. The company had previously used up to 620,000 feathers sourced from chickens, Chinese pheasants, and ostriches in the outfits worn by the Angels. Now the company says it will use handcrafted faux feathers for future shows. The company also shifted the venue to Brooklyn to appeal to a younger, more diverse audience.