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Pre-2020 Victoria’s Secret, a cultural phenomenon with televised underwear and pimply TV commercials, can sometimes be hard to fathom in a post-#MeToo world. What was once a multimillion-dollar fantasy of femininity — exclusively clad, athletic models in lace-trimmed bras or diamante push-up bras, each framed by 12-foot-tall angel wings — quickly became a fad. So it’s hard to imagine that gauche was ever taken seriously. But “Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons,” a new documentary released today, explores exactly why and how it all came to be.
The three-part series, directed by Matt Tyrnauer, traces the rise and fall of one of the most successful retail companies in the United States and around the world, identifying the social context that allowed the brand to thrive — and reflecting that cultural shift. She knelt down.
“Sex as a form of female empowerment was something that was being explored in the most popular narratives of the time,” Tirnauer said in a phone interview. “And then Victoria’s Secret as we know it got caught in this cultural earthquake, and basically drowned in a tsunami. That doesn’t happen very often, which I think makes it worth watching.”
The documentary revealed the troubling relationship between Victoria’s Secret and Jeffrey Epstein. Credit: All
In the year In the late 1990s and early 1990s, Victoria’s Secret was championed by a variety of media as a means of empowering sexuality, from “Sex and the City” to Calvin Klein’s seminal 1990s. .
But the megabrand’s eventual demise — following years of controversy — in It came to a head in 2019, shortly after Victoria’s Secret Chief Marketing Officer Ed Razek told Vogue that he didn’t believe “transgenders” were on the brand’s runways “because the show is a nightmare.” The interview sparked public outrage and model action, but there is more to the story than poor internal culture and aloof leaders.
A cultural earthquake
“Angels and Demons” chronicles a series of missteps that cost the company, including Victoria’s Secret’s entry into the junior market through the duo’s brand Rose. Using the same homogenous approach that helped build the women’s reputation, Victoria’s Secret began incorporating pink pieces into mainstream catwalk shows, featuring 20-something models dressed in sexy girly or candy-colored clothing and walking down catwalks strewn with larger-than-life lollipops. and children’s toys.
“In hindsight, it looks like it went wrong, but it went right,” Tyrnauer said.
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Even teenage heartthrob Justin Bieber, who was 18 at the time and had two platinum-selling albums, was hired to perform on the runway – reinforcing his appeal to underage audiences. In the year “My nieces were thrilled,” former Rose model Dorothea Bart Jorgensen, who walked with Bieber in 2012, said in the documentary. “And they were 10 and 12 at the time, so I think they definitely hit the target.”
The documentary includes interviews with former employees and executives, including two former CEOs, as well as casting directors and former angels – who once represented the brand. Many see the company as having a proto-Instagram effect on women, promoting unrealistic body standards and reflecting its rampant retouching culture, which means even the top angels struggle to keep up the illusion.
Tyrnauer paints a picture of company-wide abuse and sexism; Former executive Charlene Ernst recalls Victoria’s Secret’s seemingly impenetrable wall of male leaders, including Razek and chairman and former CEO Les Wexner. .
Chairman and former CEO Les Wexner will step down from the brand in 2020. Credit: All
“We were watching this bombshell, an unattainable, singular vision of how men see women,” Ernst says in the documentary.
In addition to examining Victoria’s Secret as a culture-making brand, the company also delved into its relationship with the late Jeffrey Epstein, a disgraced financier in 2015. According to the documentary, Epstein was a close business partner and personal friend of Wexner’s and used fake impersonations to recruit young women for shows and campaigns to use his brand cachet. The series includes an interview with Alicia Arden, a woman who said she was interviewing for a job as a model for the Victoria’s Secret catalog in 1997, but was instead assaulted by Epstein at a hotel in California.
Wexner’s attorney issued a statement to the filmmakers, saying that Wexner “confronted Epstein and that he was in any way associated with Victoria’s Secret, and Epstein is prohibited from working again,” apparently in violation of company policy.
Some former models and workers speak of a culture of hazing and sexism. Credit: All
‘Common’ rebirth
It’s a far-fetched story. In the year In 2020, Wexner stepped down after selling his majority stake in the company. A year later, Victoria’s Secret announced its full name — a new, all-encompassing “VS Collective” fronted by women like Megan Rapinoe, Eileen Gu and Paloma Elsaesser. “Angels and Demons” examines whether these efforts can make a difference.
Tyrnauer was granted access to old internal marketing messages and emails from the new team leading the rebrand. “The new company seems to be going in the other direction from the old Victoria’s Secret,” he said. “They gave us unprecedented access to their archives.”
“It’s not my place to be optimistic about them,” Tyrnauer said, “but the fact that they present themselves as newborns is the fun part of the story. The fun part of that is how late they came, because they were so late. By navigating the zeitgeist and using cultural trends for many Talented to earn billions of dollars over the years.
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