THE VICTORIA'S SECRET ERA IS OVER, WHAT'S NEXT?
by Kristin Merrilees
“We should go forward, we should push the boundary. Be sexy for ourselves and for who we want to be, not because a man says you have to be. It was never about that in the first place,” says Taylor Hill during the beginning of the 2018 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
Clips of Victoria’s Secret Angels talking about sisterhood, empowerment, femininity are dispersed between footage of them confidently strutting down the runway and occasionally singing and cheering each other on backstage.
With bright pink floral lingerie designs, pop singers such as Halsey and Bebe Rexha, and beautiful women who aren’t afraid to show their personalities to the crowd and camera, the show is framed as a distinctly feminist endeavor. In the YouTube comments section, many women say watching it makes them feel confident, inspired, and sexy.
But Victoria’s Secret’s roots aren’t exactly feminist. “What’s fascinating to me is that Victoria’s Secret was literally founded as a store that men could feel comfortable in buying lingerie for their girlfriends. So it was founded for men, as much as women,” says Vanessa Friedman, The New York Times’ fashion editor.
It’s not hard to see how the brand purposefully appeals to men — perfumed-up stores, glamorous pink shopping bags, catalogs & fashion shows that scream scandalous and sexy. The million-dollar crystal-covered “Fantasy Bra” on the runway, the “Bombshell Bra,” which boasts that it adds two cup sizes, online and in stores. Clearly, this isn’t a brand that has women’s comfort (there’s a reason everyone talks about how good it feels to take off an underwire bra at the end of the day) as its top priority. Rather, it wants women to buy into beauty standards created by the male gaze.
With the growing popularity of athleisure and rising body positivity movement, and increased pressure on brands for catering to a white, hyperfeminine standard of beauty, Victoria’s Secret has faced declining sales, and its famous fashion show is no more.
The brand knows things need to change. In June, the company announced it would be retiring its Angels and creating a “VS Collective” of influential, talented women to be the face of the rebrand. Soccer star Megan Rapinoe and actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas are two of the women part of it.
But for many, it’s too little too late. The company’s history of a lack of diversity, size exclusivity, and misogyny and transphobia from top execs have established it as deeply problematic and out-of-touch. Does that mean that no young women today are buying from Victoria’s Secret? No. But to an upcoming generation that cares deeply about authenticity and social issues, it does mean that it does not have nearly the same allure and cultural power as it once did.
But if Victoria’s Secret is out, what is in? Brands like Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty and Aerie have both been celebrated for their styles, size-inclusivity, and resistance to traditional beauty standards for women. Aerie, which has comfortable clothing and loungewear in addition to just underwear, is my favorite brand at the moment, with its seamless bralettes and tank tops, nylon shorts, and comfy sweats. Kim Kardashian even has her own breakout underwear and loungewear brand, Skims, which is also the official underwear of the U.S. Olympic Team in Tokyo.
Smaller brands specifically created with female empowerment and comfort in mind are also having a moment right now. Parade, which currently has over 200k followers on Instagram, makes sustainable and comfortable cotton wireless underwear and bralettes. Their underwear is simple yet cute, in bright colors and several styles.
With limited-edition, themed collections such as “Summer Daydreams,” “Disco,” “Ice Cream,” “Secret Garden,” and currently, “Circus,” Parade establishes itself as fun and creative, unafraid to diverge from outdated attitudes about beauty and what it means to be sexy. CEO Cami Téllez states on the Parade website, “I grew up going to the mall, seeing supermodels blown up on storefronts and thinking: this is what it means to be sexy. For too long, underwear has been about restricting us to a flat pink surface, but now we know that’s just one glint in the sea of self-expression.”
Other brands based on empowerment, sustainability, and comfort include Girlfriend Collective, Hara the Label, and Jonesy, to name a few.
In iD, Annie Lord writes about how the shift away from Victoria’s Secret isn’t a rejection of wanting to feel sexy. “Women still want to feel sexy, they just want to feel sexy on their own terms. We shouldn’t have to change the way we dress in an attempt to make ourselves invisible from the male gaze. Instead, the male gaze needs to have its eyes popped out of its sockets and stamped on,” she states.
I think what we’ve learned about ourselves during the pandemic is also important to consider. Having spent so much time at home, many of us have ditched bras (or the ones with underwire, anyways) and gained a new understanding of our sexualities and gender identities. We’re ready to emerge into the world unwilling to compromise our happiness, emotions, and passions. So, enough with the male gaze. It is time to embrace femininity and sexuality on our own terms.
*thumbnail image for this article sourced on Parade’s Instagram