Victoria’s Secret Is Desperate to Learn How to Sell Bras Again

Victoria’s Secret’s decade-long identity crisis has vexed at least four CEOs. Its latest leader, Hillary Super, thinks the solution is straightforward: Get back to selling bras.

To do that, the company is attempting an image makeover. A visitor to its stores during its heyday would’ve been hard-pressed to miss its satiny pushups with the lascivious tagline: “Instantly adds 2 cup sizes!” Today, front and centre are the “barely there” FlexFactor and “lighter than air, totally supportive” Featherweight series.

It’s not just the styles — comfortable, sporty and full coverage — that have shifted, but the whole vibe, as it were. No more dim, boudoir-style lighting that once defined the brand. What were once black ceilings and walls are now painted a pale blush.

Bras are “the emotional heartbeat of our business,” Chief Executive Officer Super said in an interview. “The direction of bras is the direction of the company.”

Super is the latest CEO working to regain the brand’s cultural cachet and, more pressingly, the faith of investors. Victoria’s Secret & Co. has lost more than half of its market value in four years. Today, it’s hovering just over $2 billion, with shares down about 27 percent this year.

Investors have laid the blame on the board and Super, who was lured away last year from Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty with a $1.2 million salary and a $ 1 million signing bonus. In one scathing letter, an activist called out Super’s “troubling lack of strategic focus.”

“It seemed at times that Victoria’s Secret was stuck in a tunnel without any light at the end of it,” said Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData, a research and consulting firm.

It’s those criticisms that Super and her team — known as the “Super Squad” — are now responding to.

Her team’s strategy will be tested at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show next week. The event has come to embody the core of the company’s existential crisis: What was once a global phenomenon is now considered by many as outdated and retrograde.

The board had at one point considered killing the fashion show for good, according to people familiar with those discussions, but the live event will be back for a second year in a row after a hiatus. It has cost about $35 to $40 million to put on, according to those people. A spokesperson for the company said it doesn’t publicly disclose that figure.

Super says the focus on bras means they will be “front and forward” at the fashion show, too.

“I really see this fashion show as the beginning of our new era of sexy,” she said. “That sexy is capturing more than just one type of person. It is very nuanced.”

The marketing for this year’s show, though, doesn’t stray far from its roots: Models in black lingerie, surrounded by an abundance of feathered angel wings. “More glamour. More bombshells. And now, sexier than ever,” proclaimed a promo. One of the original Angels, Adriana Lima, will return for her 20th show.

The show will also feature performances, including a group featured in the soundtrack of the Netflix hit KPop Demon Hunters.

At its peak, the prime time extravaganza drew 12 million viewers with an unapologetically raunchy ethos.

“Welcome to the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show,” said host Rupert Everett to open the 2001 broadcast, as supermodels in angel wings and lingerie readied to strut a fluorescent-lit runway. “Security is tight, and so are the girls.” Later, he’d give a “virtual tour” of Heidi Klum’s body while she stood on a pedestal wearing a black bustier.

The company wasn’t just selling bras and underwear, but a fantasy — a then-novel approach that captivated shoppers. During its height, Victoria’s Secret controlled around a third of the US bra and underwear market. It pulled $8.1 billion in annual revenue in the 2019 fiscal year. Last year revenue was at just over $6 billion.

Victoria’s Secret began losing out to upstarts like Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty and Kim Kardashian’s Skims — but not because shoppers stopped wanting to feel sexy.

Rihanna has said that she wants her customers to think “I’m a bad b--ch” when they wear her products. And Kardashian is hardly known for being demure. But the brands found a more empowering way to speak to women and embraced a sexy-at-any-size philosophy. That’s in stark contrast to the fantasy that the skinny supermodel Angels of Victoria’s Secret had come to embody.

While competitors were embracing women’s empowerment, body positivity and diversity, allegations of bullying and harassment hit Victoria’s Secret. Ties between Les Wexner, the CEO of then parent company L Brands, and pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein also tarnished the brand.

At the time of the scandal, a spokesperson for the company said it didn’t believe Epstein “was ever employed by nor served as an authorised representative of the company.”

In 2019, the company decided to cancel the fashion show. The brand had lost so much momentum that bras — long its core business — were no longer its best-performing category. By 2022, its beauty line had taken that crown, accounting for 25 percent of sales.

“We don’t have the god-given right to assume the market shares that we had in the old days,” then-CEO Martin Waters told analysts in late 2021. “The landscape has changed.”

The hiring of Super signalled that Victoria’s Secret wanted to get back to being an authority on sexy. The executive spent two decades hopping between various retailers, including Gap Inc. and Anthropologie. But most recently, and importantly, she spent a year heading up Savage X Fenty, the lingerie brand that was beating Victoria’s Secret at its own game. The stock shot up more than 15 percent on the announcement of her appointment.

Super has said the decision to veer away from its sexy DNA “watered down” the Victoria’s Secret brand. So far, however, she doesn’t seem to be taking the company back in that direction. Instead, the company is offering more types of bras without much commentary on what’s sexy or not.

“I think there was just a singular definition of sexy in the past,” Super told Bloomberg. Now, “it’s something different for every woman. And it’s really about how do you feel about yourself. Confidence is sexy.”

That the brand’s bras be comfortable is table stakes, according to Super. As for catering to a wider variety of customers, the company already offers a broad assortment of styles, but wasn’t effectively communicating that, she said.

Last quarter, Victoria’s Secret boosted its outlook for the year and now expects to have its best annual sales in three years. Bras were a bright spot, the company said, highlighting the success of its FlexFactor release. It doesn’t break out sales data for that category, but Super said that it was the first time in years that a new launch drove customers to buy more of its other styles.

Another, the Featherweight sports bra, was so popular that Victoria’s Secret in July introduced a version with a deeper V, after hearing that customers didn’t just want to wear it to the gym, but under t-shirts and blouses.

Super’s message has reached at least some of the people she’s trying to win back.

“I just really love the store,” said Alia Durlinger, 23, who was shopping at the 5th Ave. location. “I do think there’s been a rebranding, especially for bigger sizes and other types of bodies.” She left with bras in hand.

By Lily Meier