Is Victoria's Secret Sexy Again

SEX SELLS

Victoria's Secret looked destined to join the retail graveyard alongside Abercrombie's shirtless greeters, Ed Hardy trucker hats, and whatever happened to Juicy Couture tracksuits.

The brand that once ruled American malls with an iron push-up bra appeared hopelessly out of touch. Sales sagged and in the bra business, that’s a bad direction. Cultural relevance evaporated. Wall Street wondered whether Victoria's Secret had become little more than a nostalgic souvenir from the early 2000s and so it slowly started to not be relevant.

Now, against all odds, Victoria's Secret is showing signs of renewed life. Not because it suddenly invented a revolutionary bra or because women woke up one morning desperate for rhinestone-encrusted lingerie. The company survived because it finally accepted a difficult truth: the world has started to get back to pre-covid norms.

For years, Victoria's Secret operated as if it was selling fantasy. It worked famously. Unfortunately, DEI took over, the brand caved and overweight women walked their runways. Sales plummeted and competitors such as Aerie, Intimissimo and Savage X Fenty entered the scene and offered something else.  

Overweight Underperformed

The turnaround began when management stopped arguing with consumers and started listening to them. Bring sexy back.

Of course, the biggest change wasn't the bras. It was who was wearing them.

For decades, Victoria's Secret sold a very specific fantasy. The Angels were impossibly tall, impossibly fit, and appeared to survive entirely on green juice, Pilates, and favorable lighting. Husbands and boyfriends regularly shopped the stores hoping their other half would love wearing lingerie, even if only for a few minutes until it came off. 

Then came the cultural reset.

The company expanded sizing, featured plus-size models, embraced a wider range of body types, and put women on its runways and in its campaigns who were, well….not so sexy. Some consumers applauded the move as long overdue, but there wasn’t enough of them to push sales higher. Most  complained that the company had wandered too far from the aspirational glamour that made the brand famous. It was more. “I know I am overweight but I want the bra set that Giselle is wearing”, rather than, “We want woman with side rolls, just like us!”.

The irony is that both sides had a point, and it took a while for VS to notice. The challenge wasn't choosing between fantasy and reality. It was finding a balance between the two. The brand's return to cultural relevance has also been helped by something that no consultant can package into a PowerPoint presentation: nostalgia.

The Party Is Back On

Fashion has a remarkable ability to recycle itself. The same generation that once mocked Victoria's Secret now finds itself strangely sentimental about the era. Gen Z consumers who never experienced peak Victoria's Secret are discovering it the same way they discovered vinyl records, digital cameras, and low-rise jeans: as something retro enough to feel new.

Victoria's Secret made plenty of mistakes. It alienated customers. It bowed to the liberal DEI demands and it misread cultural trends. It watched competitors steal market share while executives insisted everything was fine when it certainly was not.

New management (or at least this cycles management) has looked back at the archives and noticed that tall, ultra-thin, leggy models served an important purpose. Women, no matter their body type, want to feel sexy. But they want to see themselves as the supermodel on the catwalk, not the one they see in the mirror after a fried dinner.

The result isn't a complete comeback story…at least not yet. The company still faces challenges, fierce competition, and a consumer base that can change loyalties faster than a TikTok trend.

But at least for the last few quarters, quite a few people still want to buy it.