A high school student in central Illinois is the latest to start a petition criticizing Victoria’s Secret for paying bodacious, sexy females large sums of money to model its lingerie.
The student is Siena Roberts of University High School in Urban, Ill., reports The News-Gazette, the local newspaper.
“Have more diverse models,” the junior — not pictured here — demands of Victoria’s Secret, a global retailer which produces over $6 billion in annual revenue.
“The large scale lingerie company has been featuring the same type of models in their ads for a long time; unrealistically skinny, and mostly Caucasian.”
Interestingly, the image that looms above Roberts’s petition contains seven Victoria’s Secret models and two of them, or 29 percent, are not white.
“Victoria’s Secret has a lot of pull when it comes to setting standards for the fashion industry,” the high schooler authoritatively told The News-Gazette.
“No matter who you talk to, everyone knows what Victoria’s Secret is. They aren’t just a corporation; they’re an ideal,” she added.
Roberts wants models of different shapes and sizes. She believes Victoria’s Secret models are dangerously thin because, she says, they have a body mass index (BMI) that is lower than the BMI recommended by the federal government.
Her theory is that Victoria’s Secret can somehow cause the entire fashion industry to start hiring different models. She also believes that advertising brainwashes the masses into their erroneous views about female beauty.
“If we didn’t have these unrealistically thin people all over the place established as an ideal, people wouldn’t have unrealistic standards to compare themselves to all the time,” the junior proclaimed to the local paper.
“The ideal woman portrayed in the media is very thin and very white and I think it would be awesome if there were more diverse models both in terms of size and race,” the thin, white high school student also told local CBS affiliate WCIA.
Roberts started her petition about a month ago. With poignant faith that it will make a difference, she hopes to send her petition to company CEO Sharen Jester Turney once it reaches 10,000 signatures.
As of early Monday morning, the petition has 168 signatories. At the current rate, she will achieve her goal in just five years.
Victoria’s Secret is a fashionable topic for resentment among the kind of people who like to start Change.org petitions.
For example, Amanda Fleming of Burlington, Vt. wants a national mandate to “Require Victoria’s Secret models to have a BMI of 18.5 or higher.” Fleming is “a 21 year old woman who has suffered from an eating disorder for over 5 years.” She blames models, “especially those featured in Victoria’s Secret advertisements.” She calls the models “dangerously underweight.” Her petition currently has 278 signatures and needs 9,722 more.
Another, now-closed Victoria’s Secret-hating petition at Change.org is called “Stop the destroying of returned bras!” The creator, Hannah Thorne, of Narrows, Va. angrily claims that the company sets bras returned by customers on fire. “Bras are highly sought after items in countries where human trafficking is prevalent,” Thorne also declares.
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