Victoria’s Secret Is Back But Faces a New Hurdle
Products that respect and appeal to women are luring customers, even as the company struggles to fix its supply chain.
Now making what women want.
Photographer: Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Victoria's SecretVictoria’s Secret & Co. is finding that business is much better when you root out misogyny and create products that customers actually want. (Who knew?) But supply-chain setbacks mean that it may take a bit longer for shoppers to get a full sense of the new and improved brand.
The chain has come a long way in a short time in healing from the culture created by Les Wexner, the former chief executive who built Victoria’s Secret. For years, the lingerie company clung to outdated beauty standards that exploited women’s insecurities and tailored its products not to female shoppers, but to the men it imagined would enjoy them. “You wouldn’t have to be James Bond or Dick Tracy to know in the world that breast augmentation is a popular thing,” the then-80-year-old said in 2018, demonstrating the kind of circular logic behind its efforts to sell padded push-up bras that give the illusion of enhanced breasts.