Victoria’s Secret was founded in 1977 by US businessman Roy Raymond, who started a small chain of boudoir lingerie shops when he couldn’t find men-friendly women’s stores.
In 1982 he sold the company to clothing magnate Les Wexner for $1 million – a fraction of its current value. Raymond later died by suicide after jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
He chose the name Victoria after Queen Victoria because he thought it sounded sophisticated and added Secret to refer to what was hidden beneath the clothes.
Eventually, hundreds of stores opened from coast to coast, but it was the glittering start of the Victoria’s Secret sexy runway show at the Plaza Hotel in New York in 1995 that made it a household name.
Beginnings: The first Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show was held at the Plaza Hotel in New York City in 1995, with models including Angelika Kallio (left) and Leilani (right) walking the runway
The show aired in 185 countries on Network TV, and millions tuned in to see supermodels Naomi Campbell, Helena Christensen, Tyra Banks and Karen Mulder, among others, stripped down to the bare essentials.
Victoria’s Secret opened its first flagship store on London’s Bond Street in 2012. The brand’s annual fashion show was held at this location in 2014 and featured Ed Sheeran as one of the celebrity performers.
The lingerie company has struggled to stay relevant in recent years. Except for a small increase in the first quarter of 2018, the lingerie retailer has had declining sales every quarter since the fourth quarter of 2016.
Victoria’s Secret closed 20 stores in 2018 amid a poor annual sales performance, ending the year with CEO Jan Singer after just two years at the company.
The retailer’s former parent company, L Brands, confirmed in November 2019 that its famous show would not go ahead. The decision was part of a move to “advance messaging [the company]’ Fortune reported at the time.
Famous faces: The show has featured some of the most sought-after models in the world over the years, including Bella Hadid in New York in 2018 (left) and Heidi Klum in Miami in 2008 (right)
Supermodel Tyra Banks shows an outfit during the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in New York in 2003
It came a year after marketing chief Ed Razek said the brand wouldn’t cast plus-size or “transsexual” models because the show was a “fantasy.”
In 2020, more than 100 models signed an open letter to the then-CEO of Victoria’s Secret, urging him to take action against the company’s “culture of misogyny and abuse.”
The letter urged John Mehas to end what the group – including Christy Turlington Burns, Iskra Lawrence, Edie Campbell, Amber Valletta and Felicity Hayward – described as an “ingrained culture of misogyny” at the lingerie chain.
With consumers turning from glamor to convenience and a huge backlash following reports of Wexner’s historic friendship with disgraced financier Jeffery Epstein, Victoria’s Secret faced an identity crisis.
In addition to a changing public perception of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, the brand has faced an ongoing decline in sales.
In 2020, the brand tried a new approach by posting photos on its Instagram account promoting neutral underwear in different skin tones, using models from different ethnic backgrounds and showing a variety of sizes.
However, some lingerie fans said the company’s push to finally become more diverse was “too little, too late” and accused the brand of “catching up”.
In February 2020, The New York Times carried an explosive report on sexual harassment allegations against Victoria’s Secret executive Ed Razek, who left the company the previous year.
Among the allegations was that Razek sexually harassed Bella Hadid during her fitting for the 2018 edition of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
Three eyewitnesses and one person who heard the remark secondhand said Razek commanded, “Forget the panties,” since Hadid was being measured for underwear.
Three sources also claimed that he felt a model’s crotch through underwear at the same fitting where Hadid had her measurements.
Razek, who resigned in August 2019, insisted: “The allegations in this coverage are categorically false, misconstrued or taken out of context.”
Three months later, L Brands announced the closure of 250 stores in the US and Canada in May 2020 after being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The closures accounted for nearly a quarter of Victoria’s Secret’s 1,091 locations in North America.
In June 2021, as part of its rebranding, Vicoria’s Secret unveiled its new diverse lineup of female speakers, including LGBT advocate and soccer starter Megan Rapinoe and Indian actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas.
A month later, L Brands split into two separate companies: Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works.
In November, Victoria’s Secret forecast sales for the fourth quarter of 2021 to grow in a range of flat to 3%, compared to sales of $2.1 trillion in the prior-year fourth quarter.