{"slug": "the-rise-fall-and-revival-of-victoria-s-secret-america-s-biggest-lingerie-brand", "title": "The rise, fall, and revival of Victoria's Secret: America's biggest lingerie brand brings sexy back", "summary": "Victoria's Secret, once the dominant US lingerie retailer, experienced a decline due to sluggish sales, criticism over a lack of diversity, and scandal involving its former CEO. After hiring former Savage x Fenty CEO Hillary Super in 2024, the brand has revived its iconic fashion show and reported its strongest sales growth since 2021. The company's strategy involves embracing sex appeal again, which CEO Super believes was lost when the brand became \"watered down\" by trying not to offend anyone.", "body_md": "Victoria's Secret is back.\nThe lingerie retailer has been an industry leader in the US for several decades. But in recent years, it has faced sluggish sales, criticism for its lack of model diversity and size inclusivity, scandal over its former CEO's ties to Jeffrey Epstein, and an overhaul of its brand image.\nThings have been looking up for Victoria's Secret since it hired a CEO, Hillary Super, who previously led Savage x Fenty, in 2024.\nOn March 5, the company reported that comparable-store sales rose 5% in fiscal 2025. This marked the company's strongest sales growth since its split from L Brands in 2021.\nCEO Super has brought back the Victoria's Secret fashion show that was once broadcast annually, and said she isn't shying away from sex appeal. She told The Wall Street Journal that the brand became \"watered down\" by trying not to offend anyone.\nHere's a look at Victoria's Secret's rise and fall and the brand's plan for redemption.\nVictoria's Secret was founded in 1977 by American businessman Roy Raymond.\nInspired by an uncomfortable trip to a department store to buy underwear for his wife, Raymond set out to create a place where men would feel comfortable shopping for lingerie. He wanted to create a women's underwear shop that was targeted at men.\nHe named the brand after the Victorian era in England, wanting to evoke the refinement of this period in his lingerie.\nRaymond's vision was summed up by Slate's Naomi Barr in 2013: \"Raymond imagined a Victorian boudoir, replete with dark wood, oriental rugs, and silk drapery. He chose the name 'Victoria' to evoke the propriety and respectability associated with the Victorian era; outwardly refined, Victoria's 'secrets' were hidden beneath.\"\nHe went on to open a handful of Victoria's Secret stores and launched its famous catalog.\nBy 1982, the company was making more than $4 million in annual sales, but according to reports, it was nearing bankruptcy at the time.\nAt this point, Les Wexner swooped in. Wexner, who founded L Brands (formerly Limited Brands), was already making a name for himself in the retail world as he gradually built up an impressive empire.\nBy June 1982, Limited — which had previously acquired Express and Lane Bryant — was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. One month later, under Wexner's leadership, the company acquired Victoria's Secret's six stores and its catalog for $1 million.\nWexner turned Raymond's vision on its head, creating a store that was focused on women rather than men.\nHe was closely following the European lingerie market of that time and wanted to bring this aesthetic to the US. So, he set out to create a more affordable version of the European upscale brand \"La Perla\" — lingerie that looked luxurious and expensive but was affordable.\nAnd it worked. By the early 1990s, Victoria's Secret had become the largest lingerie retailer in the US.\nIt had 350 stores nationally and sales topping $1 billion, The Telegraph reported.\nThe brand began to cement its image over the next few years. In 1995, its famous annual fashion show was born.\nThe show, which was run by Ed Razek (longtime chief marketing officer of L Brands), became an iconic part of the brand's image.\nRazek and his team were responsible for hand-picking the models to walk the show. Because of this, he became one of the most important people in the modeling world, helping to launch the careers of Gisele Bündchen, Tyra Banks, and Heidi Klum.\nIn 1999, the show aired for the first time online.\nTime described it as the \"internet-breaking moment\" of this era after 1.5 million viewers tried to tune in and crashed the site.\nMeanwhile, the brand was also launching some of its best-known and most successful products, including its heavily padded Miracle Bra and Body by Victoria.\nBody by Victoria was a \"blockbuster success\" and more than doubled the sales volume of any other bra that Victoria's Secret had previously launched, Michael Silverstein wrote in his book, \"Trading Up.\"\nAround 1997, the idea of the Victoria's Secret \"Angel\" came into play.\nIt was after a commercial featuring Helena Christensen, Karen Mulder, Daniela Peštová, Stephanie Seymour, and Tyra Banks ran to promote its \"Angels\" underwear collection. It was tradition for an Angel to wear a Fantasy Bra at every runway show starting in 1996. They changed each year.\nThroughout the '90s and early 2000s, its commercials featured heavily made-up and scantily dressed Angels.\nRazek hired the best photographers and television directors in the world to make commercials for the brand.\nThe runway shows became more lavish.\nIn 2000, model Gisele Bündchen walked the runway in what was then the most expensive item of lingerie ever created, a $15 million diamond-and-ruby-encrusted 'Fantasy Bra.'\nIn 2000, Sharen Jester Turney became CEO of Victoria's Secret Direct and headed up its catalog business.\nAccording to reports at the time, Turney wanted to remove the \"hooker looks\" in the catalog and make the aesthetic more like Vogue than Playboy.\nShe became CEO of the whole brand in 2006.\nUnder her nine-year tenure, the company thrived; sales increased by 70% to $7.7 billion.\nTurney abruptly stepped down in 2016 and was succeeded by Wexner as interim CEO.\nWexner made a series of quick and fast changes: killing the catalog, swimwear, and apparel to focus solely on lingerie, the core part of its business.\nHe also split the brand into three — Victoria's Secret Lingerie, Victoria's Secret Beauty, and Pink — and recruited a CEO for each division.\nJan Singer became CEO of Victoria's Secret Lingerie in September 2016.\nSinger spent over a decade at Nike and was CEO of Spanx before she joined Victoria's Secret.\nBetween 2015 and 2018, sales began to falter.\nVictoria's Secret was slow to adjust to a shift from padded and push-up bras toward bralettes and sports bras, missing out on a major fashion trend.\nMore body-positive underwear brands such as Aerie, ThirdLove, and Lively cropped up, taking market share.\nVictoria's Secret was accused of failing to adapt to the times. Between 2016 and 2018, its market share in the US dropped from 33% to 24%. Some shoppers complained that the quality of its underwear had slipped.\nOne of its biggest assets, the teen-centric brand Pink, also began to struggle. Sales slipped, and it resorted to heavy discounting to woo shoppers.\n\"We believe Pink is on the precipice of collapse,\" Jefferies analyst Randal Konik wrote in a note to investors in March 2018, commenting on the level of promotions in store.\nSome parents complained that Pink was being brought down by Victoria's Secret's over-sexualized ads.\nIts annual fashion show drew criticism for being outdated, and viewership slipped.\nIn November 2018, Ed Razek, then-chief marketing officer of L Brands, made controversial comments about transgender and plus-size models.\nRazek said in an interview with Vogue that he didn't think the show should feature \"transsexuals\" because the show is a \"fantasy.\"\n\"It's a 42-minute entertainment special. That's what it is,\" he said in the interview.\nRazek made a formal apology online, but some of his critics called for him to step down.\nLess than a week after Razek's comments went viral, Singer resigned.\nSinger was replaced by John Mehas, who took over the role at the start of 2019.\nMehas had his work cut out for him. Same-store sales at Victoria's Secret were down 3% in 2018, and the retailer was gradually losing market share to new companies.\nPlus, he had angry shareholders to deal with. In March 2019, activist shareholder Barington Capital sent a letter to Wexner, laying out recommendations to improve growth at Victoria's Secret and calling out the company's brand image as being \"outdated.\"\nBarington also called out the lack of diversity in its board of directors as an issue for the brand. At the time, of the 11 board members, nine were men.\nThe company appointed two new female board directors — Sarah E. Nash and Anne Sheehan — and made steps to address the comments about the brand image being outdated.\nIt hired a more body-inclusive model.\nWhile she is not a plus-size model, fans praised the company for choosing Hungarian model Barbara Palvin as one of its newest Angels.\nInstagrammers celebrated a post starring Palvin for being more body-inclusive, as they perceived her to be curvier than some of the brand's other models.\n\"This model actually looks healthy..& I'm loving it!\" one Instagram user wrote.\nIt also hired its first openly transgender model.\nBrazilian transgender model Valentina Sampaio, shared a photograph of herself on Instagram in August 2019, tagging the Victoria's Secret Pink brand along with the hashtags: \"campaign,\" \"vspink,\" and \"diversity.\"A day later, she shared a video of herself with the caption \"Never stop dreaming.\"\nHer agent later confirmed that she had signed a contract with Victoria's Secret. Sampaio is expected to hit the runway for the 2024 show.\n\"Today Is the day!!! Finally after 6 years since my first VS casting, today the dream will come true,\" she wrote in an Instagram post ahead of the show.\nThe same day, Wexner announced that Razek would be resigning in the middle of August in a memo sent out to employees.\nRazek ran the fashion show, so its future seemed unclear at the time of his departure.\nOn November 21, 2019, the company confirmed that it had officially canceled its runway fashion show for that year.\nAt the time, L Brands CFO Stuart Burgdoerfer told analysts that the fashion show had little impact on boosting sales at the brand.\nWhile these were potentially positive changes, the brand found itself caught up in a new challenge in the summer of 2019: its CEO and the company being linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.\nEpstein managed Wexner's money for several years, and former company executives told The Wall Street Journal that he tried to meddle in Victoria's Secret's business, offering input on which women should be models.\nSome of Epstein's victims came forward saying that he used his connection to Victoria's Secret to coerce them into sexual acts.\nL Brands' board of directors announced that it had hired an outside law firm to review its relationship with Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in August 2019.\nIn September, Wexner addressed his ties to Epstein at L Brands' investor meeting. \"At some point in your life we are all betrayed by friends,\" Wexner said. \"Being taken advantage of by someone who was so sick, so cunning, so depraved, is something that I'm embarrassed I was even close to. But that is in the past.\"", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-rise-fall-and-revival-of-victoria-s-secret-america-s-biggest-lingerie-brand", "canonical_source": "https://www.businessinsider.com/victorias-secret-rise-and-fall-history-2019-5", "published_at": "2026-05-22 12:41:27+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-22 13:14:07.391488+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": [], "entities": ["Victoria's Secret", "Hillary Super", "Savage x Fenty", "L Brands", "Roy Raymond", "The Wall Street Journal", "Slate", "Naomi Barr"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-rise-fall-and-revival-of-victoria-s-secret-america-s-biggest-lingerie-brand", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-rise-fall-and-revival-of-victoria-s-secret-america-s-biggest-lingerie-brand.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-rise-fall-and-revival-of-victoria-s-secret-america-s-biggest-lingerie-brand.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-rise-fall-and-revival-of-victoria-s-secret-america-s-biggest-lingerie-brand.jsonld"}}