Victoria’s Secret finally kills off angels

Victoria’s Secret has ditched its “angels” and recruited actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas and soccer World Cup winner Megan Rapinoe in an attempt to transform the brand.

The stars will lead a new era for the embattled lingerie giant, which announced this week that it would replace its VS Angels with the VS Collective.

The move marks a massive overhaul of the brand’s image after it was heavily criticised for its sexist and outdated representations of women.

The brand’s latest initiative will feature seven diverse “leading icons” and “changemakers” who will “shape the future of the brand”.
 

“[The VS Collective is] an ever-growing group of accomplished women who share a common passion to drive positive change,” the company revealed in a press release.

“Through social, cultural and business relationships, the VS Collective will work to create new associate programs, revolutionary product collections, compelling and inspiring content, and rally support for causes vital to women.”

The group will bring together activists, athletes, artists and models from across the globe for a 10-part podcast series.

Rapinoe and Chopra Jonas will join Sudanese-Australian model Adut Akech, Brazilian transgender model Valentina Sampaio, plus-size model Paloma Elesser, journalist Amanda de Cadenet and freestyle skier Eileen Gu.

The move comes after the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, L Brands, announced in November 2019 that it would retire its glitzy televised fashion show.

Rapinoe was blunt in speaking about the brand’s past image, describing it as: “patriarchal, sexist, viewing not just what it meant to be sexy but what the clothes were trying to accomplish through a male lens and through what men desired. And it was very much marketed toward younger women”.

The brand was embroiled in controversy last year after the New York Times exposed ties between L Brands’ founder Leslie H. Wexner and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Explosive allegations plagued the brand in 2019 when current and former executives, models and employees spoke out about a misogynistic corporate culture.

“When the world was changing, we were too slow to respond,” CEO Martin Waters told the Times.

“We needed to stop being about what men want and to be about what women want.”

Mr Waters said he did not see the VS Angels as being “culturally relevant” in the modern era.

The major shift comes after a period of decline, with the company’s market share dropping to 21 per cent in 2020, down from 32 per cent just five years earlier.