Victoria’s Secret is pivoting away from woke ideology and a string of progressive marketing campaigns after suffering a significant drop in sales this year, multiple outlets reported.
Victoria’s Secret is reportedly done with prioritizing “wokeness” over “sexiness” after sales drop pic.twitter.com/xXXEzMUUud
— Daily Loud (@DailyLoud) October 18, 2023
The rebrand is over, Business of Fashion’s Cathaleen Chen said. The brand is moving away from its previous strategy of more “inclusive” marketing campaigns after it saw a five percent drop in sales from 2022 to 2023.
After trying to go woke, notably featuring LGBTQ icon and former U.S. Women’s National Team soccer player Megan Rapinoe as a brand ambassador, Victoria’s Secret will be moving back in the direction of selling “sexiness.” (RELATED: Toni Breidinger Announces She’s Now A Victoria’s Secret Model)
“Sexiness can be inclusive,” Victoria’s Secret brand president Greg Unis said, according to Business of Fashion.
In a 2021 interview, Rapinoe called Victoria’s Secret’s previous brand “patriarchal, sexist, viewing not just what it meant to be sexy but what the clothes were trying to accomplish through a male lens and through what men desired,” according to the New York Post.
Well, it turns out the patriarchy pushes panties a lot more than woke ideology. CEO Martin Waters admitted as much, saying that “[d]espite everyone’s best endeavors, it’s not been enough to carry the day,” according to the NY Post.
The iconic brand has already begun to re-sexify, bringing back their vaunted fashion show after a four-year hiatus, and hiring more classically beautiful women like Emily Ratajkowski and Hailey Bieber for ad campaigns, according to Business of Fashion.