VICTORIA'S SECRET - THE BRAND

Victoria’s Secret is one the world’s leading underwear brands, with, as of 2010, 1000 stores around the world, alongside their apparel brand, Pink. The lingerie brand are best known for their huge annual catwalk, showcasing some of the biggest supermodels in the world such as; Alessandra Ambrosio, Kendall Jenner, Bella and Gigi Hadid and Winnie Harlow. Recently, Victoria’s Secret had their 23^rdcatwalk extravaganza, which cost in total around £9.2 million to put together, was the least watched of their shows since 2013. With the viewer ratings falling by 6.44 million, as well as controversy about the models in the show, it has made this year much more difficult for the brand. There has been a lot of backlash from the media towards Victoria’s Secret regarding the models that had starred in the show. First of all, they didn’t use as many of the original angels as they had in previous years and people were irritated by the fact that no plus-size of transgender models in this years show considering how much the fashion world has changed in 2018. Many other brands have been using models that do not ‘fit in’ the bracket of ‘typical’ models, such as plus-size and transgender, as well as males not just females to make clothing more androgynous. After backlash from the media, Victoria’s Secret Chief Marketing Officer, Ed Razek, said insensitive comments about transgender models which has caused a lot of controversy around the brand’s identity. In reaction to this, a transgender social media influencer, Nikita Dragun created a video to address the insensitive comments, with a video of her dressed as an angel, that got 7 million views on Instagram and Twitter, which was about double the views of this year’s show. One of Victoria’s Secret’s biggest competitors was Savage X Fenty by Rihanna, who had models of a large diversity such as pregnant, transgender and plus-size models. With it being Rihanna’s brand, they got a lot media attention which has massively helped the identity of this new brand and with all the controversy surrounding VS, it has overtaken the lingerie market.