Victoria's Secret is set to close over 50 locations this year. The lingerie brand hasn't been doing well for a while; it has had increasingly low sales, and last year's fashion show brought the brand's lowest number of viewers ever.
Honestly, the body-positivity community kind of saw this coming. More than ever, women are demanding size diversity in stores, and VS hasn't changed it fatphobic (and transphobic) ideals a bit. Combine this with the entrance of several other popular, size-inclusive lingerie brands into the market, and the demise of VS doesn't seem that shocking.
Victoria's Secret is closing 53 stores.
Victoria's Secret's parent company, L Brands, has announced that it's closing 53 VS locations this year. Stuart Burgdoerfer, the L Brands executive vice president and CFO, said that the decision to close the stores was "based on the overall performance of the Victoria's Secret business, not meeting our expectations or having year-on-year declines."
The company closed 30 other locations last year.
Victoria's Secret has had declining sales for a while.
VS is still the country's no. 1 lingerie brand, but it's been struggling to stay on top. It decided to stop selling swimwear in March of 2016, which was said to be part of the reason that sales dropped later on that year. Although the brand recently announced that it will bring back its swimwear line, new swim items have yet to see the light of day.
It's no surprise, given that the brand has only ever catered to a certain body type.
I'm not sure if Victoria's Secret will ever figure it out, but women come in more than one shape and size. Although it has certainly received criticism for not having diversity in its models, but models who aim to one day don the Angel title must be above 5'8", under 30 years old, and slim yet large breasted.
People want to be represented by the brands they support. In 2017, a study was conducted where 60 percent of the people polled said VS feels "forced" or "fake."
Plus, the brand's former CEO has said some downright offensive things about women's bodies.
Jan Singer was the CEO of Victoria's Secret until she stepped down last year after the company's chief marketing officer, Ed Razek, made some fatphobic and transphobic comments. Razek said that he wouldn't put transgender or plus-size models on the runways of the Victoria's Secret fashion shows because they don't align with the "fantasy" the company is trying to sell. The only fantasy here is that there's only one kind of woman.
He went on to say the company caters to plus-size women through its sister brand Lane Bryant, and that it had tried to produce a plus-size show years before, but there "wasn't enough interest."
Razek released an apology on Twitter, but it was too late.
Razek later apologized on Twitter, saying that his comments "came across as insensitive." Well, I wonder why. He went on to say that the brand has had transgender models audition for the show; they just never made the cut. Singer stepped down a week after those comments were made, suggesting that there was nothing she could do to uplift the failing brand.
Victoria's Secret's last annual runway show had the lowest ratings the brand has ever seen.
Only 3.27 million people watched the show, and it's reported that VS lost half of its television audience in only two years. The show even had a lot of musical performances from well known artists such as Shawn Mendes and Rita Ora — but the fashion show aired after Razek's comments, and that surely hurt its ratings.
Even Halsey, who performed at the show, released a statement before it aired to clarify that she's distancing herself from the brand.
Halsey's performance was pretaped (as is the entire show), and she apparently heard Razek's comments after her spot had been filmed. She went on Instagram before the show aired to talk about how she didn't support its "lack of inclusivity."
For some people, Victoria's Secret is just too expensive.
But Target just launched lingerie that's more size inclusive than VS has ever been. One of Target's latest sister brands, Auden, is an affordable line of lingerie for women of various sizes. Its options for bras range in size from 32AA–46G and panties come from XS to 4X. On top of that, everything in the line is less than $22.
And these days, there are many other brands giving women of all sizes and experiences the spotlight.
The lingerie industry just isn't what it used to be. At one point, Victoria's Secret was the only mainstream retailer to offer lingerie. But now there are different brands that have continuously been inclusive of different body types.
But other brands have been inclusive for years. They're just slept on.
Adore Me is one that comes to mind. Its bra sizes range from a 30A to 46G. Panties go from XS to 4X. Plus, all of these brands have a bunch of different options, so women aren't limited to plain and neutral colors when it comes time to make a purchase. Not everyone wants to be limited to one kind of bra, and with all of these brands, that's possible now.
Getting the hint, Victoria's Secret?
