How Victoria’s Secret Killed Its Angels (and Its Brand) | Episode 80

So the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is back yet again.

And after years of bending over backwards, desperately attempting to appease DEI standards, they have simply disappointed everyone.

What a surprise.

And on top of that, they shot down a woman who would have actually represented their customer base.

So in case you missed it, back in 2019, Victoria's Secret ended the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show and they canceled their famous Victoria's Secret Secret Angels in order to appease left-wing activists who were claiming that the brand and the fashion show was problematic in their portrayal of women and women's bodies.

But after flop and flop and flop over the last six years or so, Victoria's Secret is trying to crawl back to their primary audience.

And they have proven, once again, why it is so dangerous to try and cater to ever-changing political and cultural trends instead of just staying true to your core message and your core audience.

And we are going to talk about why.

Back in 2021, this is a couple of years after they ended the fashion show, Victoria's Secret swapped out their aspirational supermodels that were called the Victoria's Secret Angels for something that they called the collective.

Collective.

I mean, like, I think of the word collective and nothing screams hot lingerie, nothing screams beautiful women aspirational.

And you know what, guys?

That was the point.

It's genderless female empowerment.

And I know that does not sound like it's something that is real.

It's not real, but that is what Victoria's Secret was basically trying to achieve with creating the collective.

Here's an article from around that time.

Victoria Secret is getting rid of its angels and launching the VS Collective.

Now, in a Guardian article from 2021, the collective was described as this.

They said, the angels, a core of notably thin catwalkers who would strut in heavy wings and sky-high stilettos during the Victoria Secret televised fashion shows, will be replaced by seven new figureheads described as quote, accomplished women who share a common passion to drive positive change.

These women, comprising the VS Collective, lean prominently towards sporty and activist types in a fundamental re-angling for the company.

That is putting it mildly.

The new group includes the champion U.S.

soccer player, women's pay equity advocate, and prominent anti-Donald Trump voice, Megan Rapineau.

Wow, there we go.

Actor and entrepreneur Priyanka Choprajonas.

That's Joe Jonas's wife.

And the list just goes on.

Those matches make you feel...

sexy and ready to buy lingerie.

Nothing like Megan Rapineau and a biological man to really get you in the mood.

Thank you, Victoria's Secret, for that.

I mean, the whole thing was just laughable.

It was ridiculous.

They were desperately chasing the extreme wokeness of 2020 and 2021 after the mob had gone after them for being triggering and problematic, aka using real supermodels in their fashion shows.

having aspirational models walk the runway in their insane larger-than-life lingerie and huge wings.

The fashion show was about a fantasy, but that was just too aspirational.

It needs to come back down to earth to Megan Rapineau.

I mean, none of this was authentic to the brand of Victoria's Secret, no matter what the executives said at the time.

Now, the Guardian article went on.

They included a quote from the Victoria's Secret CEO, Martin Waters, where he said, quote, at Victoria's Secret, we are on an incredible journey to become the world's leading advocate for women.

This is a dramatic shift for our brand.

Yeah, that's putting it lightly.

And it is a shift that we are embracing from our core.

These new initiatives are just the beginning.

We are energized and humbled by the work ahead of us.

And the chief financial officer, Martha Peace, noted a mission to, quote, transform how we connect with and show up for women.

I'm sorry, like, why?

This is so ridiculous to me.

Not every brand needs to be an advocate.

Not every brand needs to empower women in this way.

Like, you do not need to be the leading advocate for women.

You just need to sell panties.

Like, I'm sorry, Victoria's Secret.

That is what you are here for.

That is all women think about when they think about Victoria's Secret.

And no amount of lesbian activist spokespeople will change that.

This is not something that is changing in your core.

The core being a Victoria's Secret.

No, you're changing it because a mob was going after you on social media and you bent the knee.

Anyway, moving on from that, they charged on with this ridiculous idea with their VS collective and their brand massively suffered.

They lost their icon and fantasy status with women and their sales decreased year after year and year.

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Now, getting back to the story and everything that Victoria's Secret did, we can, of course, argue that the brand's failures were, you know, political or because of DEI and all of their inclusivity things that they were trying to do.

But politics aside, this was just a dumb brand move.

Because again, they diverted from their core audience.

And Camille Moore, who is a marketing strategist on Instagram who often dives into these kind of brand failures and wins, she laid all of this out really well in a recent post.

So she said, why it failed?

Well, Victoria's Secret forgot what they actually sell.

They ignored the truth of their category, which is that lingerie is inherently aspirational.

Women buy it for transformation, not empowerment.

The brand DNA was rejected.

They built an empire on feel like an angel, and then they killed the angels right in front of us.

And didn't just kill the angels, but then shamed anyone who was an angel, was one of those models, and shamed anybody who enjoyed the fashion show because we were problematic for wanting to see hot, skinny models walk with 50-pound pound wings on their backs.

Camille also said that they were targeting the wrong audience, which is, you know, putting it mildly, but she were optimized for critics who never bought Victoria's Secret, alienated the customers who did.

And then the last one is it simply felt inauthentic.

It was an overnight pivot, which equals desperate pandering, not genuine evolution.

That is why it is so ridiculous that the CEO was saying that this was something they were doing from their core that they really, really felt was meaningful and authentic.

No, BS, it's not.

On our next slide, she said, the real problem is that cultural critics are not your customers.

We should be screaming this from the rooftops.

The people who were demanding the Victoria's Secret change, they never bought lingerie there.

Meanwhile, the core customers felt abandoned.

I could not have said it better myself.

She really summed it up in those two slides.

Now, finally, after years of seeing their sales decline massively, they brought back the iconic fashion show, or they attempted to.

But the thing was, it was cheap.

The magic was gone, and they were still focused way too much on inclusivity.

The fantasy did not exist.

Even the New York Times said that if this is what you are coming back with, with, you just shouldn't come back at all.

Like, let's just get rid of it because nothing will be able to achieve what we lost.

And this is just so fake.

But now, because their failures were so obvious, year after year, they are continuing to press on.

They are determined to win back the audience that they abandoned.

And this year was the closest that they've come.

And they were rewarded with over 15 million viewers of the fashion show that just happened a couple of days ago.

But guys, it still wasn't enough.

Per usual, because once you bend a knee to the left, this is the core part of this episode.

Once you bend a knee to the left and you feed into the demands of an activist mob, nothing you will ever do will please them.

And this is a prime example because it will never be enough.

And while Victoria's Secret did bring back some of their iconic angels and supermodels, and they did try to make the wings look a little less like they bought them at Halloween town the night before, they were still frantically trying to check diversity boxes.

I mean, they had a trans model, they had a collection of plus-size models, probably hoping to ward off the critics who were upset that the fashion show was back.

But again, it wasn't enough.

And for some, the models just weren't fat enough.

It's never fat enough.

It's never enough.

I mean, how many times can I say this?

This person who got over a million impressions on X said, Savage, X Fenty Show, this is the real plus size representation that everyone would like to see.

Can we just zoom in on some of these pictures here?

That's not even a woman in that last picture.

Like, I'm sorry, no, none of us want to see that.

I'm sorry, women do not want that.

And if women are online telling you that they do, I'm just going to put it out there.

That is projection.

And I'm sorry, but glorifying obesity is not aspirational.

It is certainly not part of the fantasy that Victoria's Secret has tried to sell for the entire existence of their brand.

So, again, Victoria's Secret has found themselves in a predicament where they are trying to cater to everyone.

They don't want to make anybody unhappy.

They're still trying to avoid being problematic.

So, they're kind of pandering to the critics, but they're still wanting to win back their core original customers and they're desperately wanting to be inclusive.

But their inclusivity is simply about checking boxes and being politically relevant.

relevant.

And this year, they had the opportunity to be a real leader for women, to actually be an advocate and be empowering, and they didn't take it.

Bianca Balti, who is a model and a former Victoria Secret Angel from 2005, 2007, I believe, don't quote me on that.

She underwent a double mastectomy a couple of years ago after discovering that she carried the BRCA1 gene.

And then last year, in 2024, she was diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer.

And this is something that she has documented online.

She has done modeling jobs after she shaved her head.

She has shown off her double mastectomy scars.

This is something that she is being very public with as she is trying to empower other women and say, you can still be beautiful.

I still want you to feel beautiful, even if you are undergoing chemotherapy or fighting cancer like me.

And to further her mission and to try to promote real inclusivity, she wrote a letter to Victoria's Secret asking if they would let her walk in the show again to raise awareness, because obviously.

They care about inclusivity.

They care about representing all women, right?

Well, not so much.

And Bianca shared all of this in a recent Substack article that has now gone viral on X.

She wrote, inclusivity makes making your audience feel seen.

And here's the truth.

One in three women will face cancer in their lifetime.

One in eight will face breast cancer.

Thousands will face ovarian cancer.

I am one of them.

Since my diagnosis last year, I have become a voice for countless women.

They write to me daily.

Women in treatment, survivors, mothers, even children fighting cancer, telling me that seeing me share my journey, appearing without a wig on national television and embracing my scars, gives them hope.

I know firsthand how much we all need someone to look up to when we feel broken.

I learned that long ago when I got sober 12 years ago.

We heal by seeing proof that thriving is possible.

She continued and said, on October 14th, I celebrate one year since my first chemotherapy session.

On October 15th, your show returns during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Life doesn't script moments this aligned by accident.

I'm not the youngest, curviest, or fittest, but I am strong, brave, and alive, and I'm still damn sexy.

I wear my scars proudly and I rock my newly grown hair with pride.

Having me on that runway wouldn't just be a personal dream fulfilled.

It would send a message to millions of women.

Life goes on in the face of adversity.

You are not less of a woman.

You are whole.

You are sexy.

You are unstoppable.

I am living proof of that.

Thank you for considering me, not just for myself, but for every woman who needs to see hope and strength reflected back at her.

With love and courage, Bianca Balti.

That's an amazing letter.

The first time that I read it on X a couple of days ago, I had full body chills because this is what inclusivity should mean.

This is what representation should mean.

And Victoria Seeker responded to her, and they said, not this year, which can't do it, so not this year, but thanks for reaching out.

Now, to be fair, the show had already been cast.

They had been working on it for a year.

Bianca sent this letter not long before the show.

But I would ask, Victoria Secret, why had you not thought of this already?

You have spent every waking moment of the last four years trying to convince the world that you are here to represent every woman, to be a leader, to be an advocate.

No more supermodels.

We want real women.

And what did you go and do?

You went and hired activists who hate half of the country and make millions talking about Donald Trump and quote-unquote pay gaps in soccer.

You glorified obesity after a pandemic that put overweight Americans highly at risk.

You hired biological men to prance around in women's lingerie.

And you did all of that to represent women, to be an advocate for us, to empower me.

I'm sorry, none of that feels empowering.

And you did all of that without thinking about representing normal women, maybe women who share stories like like Bianca's, who want to feel beautiful and desired and empowered again.

That would have been transformative.

That would have been empowering.

But when your diversity only encompasses the categories that are dictated by the current thing and the socio-political landscape, that's not diversity.

That is political pandering.

And that is what you've been doing.

So let's just be honest about it.

That has been your goal since 2019.

Now, in the rest of her Sub-Sack piece, Bianca did not hit Victoria's Secret as straightforwardly as I just did there, but she did slightly hit them with the fact that for a company that apparently cares so much about diversity, they are missing a big category.

And she ended her piece with this.

She said, to Victoria's Secret, please don't worry.

I didn't take it personally.

Before cancer, I didn't realize how many people were going through it either.

But it's never too late.

The numbers are growing every year, and the women you sell to are the same women being diagnosed with gynecological cancers.

We are your audience.

We are your customers.

We are your sisters, mothers, and daughters.

And we would be so proud to see ourselves represented bold, beautiful, and alive.

And that conclusion came after she laid out all of the different diversity quotas they've hit over the last couple of years, all the people that they've had walk on their runway, none of which were a woman like her.

And what Bianca is talking about here is the kind of diversity that people would love to see, regardless of your political affiliation, because it impacts all of us.

It touches every single person.

It's representation that doesn't steer your brand away from its core values and audience.

Rather, it would deepen deepen the commitment that you have made over the years to make women feel beautiful.

But hey, that would just make too much sense.

That would be too easy.

Now, guys, who knows if Victoria's Secret and their fashion show will ever return to the peak that they had in the earlier 2000s?

Who knows if the magic will ever return?

I mean, they have made so many missteps along the way over the past six years or so that it might never be possible.

And hey, that's their fault.

That is okay.

Maybe it is just time for a new brand to take over the aspirational magic, the fantasy that they once made for women around the world.

Because they have certainly fallen short.