The Rise, Fall, and Reinvention of America's Lingerie Empire
A Stanford MBA's Embarrassment (1977)
The story of Victoria's Secret begins with a moment of acute male discomfort. In 1977, Roy Raymond — a Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus — walked into a department store to buy lingerie for his wife. Surrounded by fluorescent lighting, industrial carpet, and saleswomen who made him feel like a pervert, Raymond had an epiphany: there had to be a better way.
With $80,000 ($40,000 of it borrowed from relatives), Raymond opened the first Victoria's Secret at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, California. The concept was revolutionary — a store designed to make men comfortable buying lingerie, with a Victorian boudoir aesthetic, wood-paneled walls, and a catalog that resembled a gentleman's periodical. First-year sales hit $500,000.
The Wexner Acquisition (1982)
By 1982, Raymond had expanded to six stores and a mail-order catalog generating $6 million annually. But the business was hemorrhaging cash. Enter Les Wexner, founder of The Limited, who purchased Victoria's Secret for just $1 million — roughly 0.17x revenue.
What Wexner saw was not what Raymond had built, but what it could become. He pivoted the brand from catering to men buying gifts to empowering women buying for themselves. He replaced the Victorian aesthetic with aspirational glamour and expanded the product line from intimate apparel into beauty, fragrance, and loungewear.
The Angels Era (1995-2018)
The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show debuted on August 1, 1995, in the Plaza Hotel in New York City. What began as a relatively modest runway event would become one of the most-watched fashion spectacles in television history, peaking at 10.3 million viewers in 2001.
The "Angels" — contract models who became household names — transformed the brand into a cultural phenomenon. Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Gisele Bundchen, Adriana Lima, and Alessandra Ambrosio became some of the most famous faces on the planet. The Fantasy Bra, an annual jewel-encrusted creation, became a publicity juggernaut, with the 2000 "Red Hot Fantasy Bra" valued at $15 million.
At its peak in 2015, Victoria's Secret commanded roughly 33% of the American lingerie market and generated $7.7 billion in annual revenue.
The Reckoning (2018-2020)
The fall was swift and staggering. Chief Marketing Officer Ed Razek told Vogue in 2018 that the fashion show should not include transgender or plus-size models because the show was a "fantasy." The backlash was immediate and devastating.
The 2018 fashion show drew only 3.3 million viewers — a 70% drop from the peak. It was the last show ever broadcast. The brand's market share plummeted to roughly 21% by 2019. Fenty, ThirdLove, and Aerie had redefined what consumers expected: inclusivity, comfort, and authenticity.
The association with Jeffrey Epstein — Les Wexner was Epstein's primary financial patron, and Epstein had posed as a Victoria's Secret talent recruiter — added a devastating layer of scandal. Wexner stepped down as CEO of L Brands in 2020.
VS&Co and Reinvention (2021-Present)
In August 2021, Victoria's Secret was spun off from L Brands as an independent public company. The Angels were retired. The VS Collective — featuring Megan Rapinoe, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Valentina Sampaio (the brand's first transgender model) — replaced them.
The brand that once defined American lingerie is now attempting the hardest trick in retail: reinventing itself without losing the customers who loved what it was, while winning over those who never could.
Founder
Models (23)
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Collections (31)
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Million Dollar Miracle Bra
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2310 products in our archive
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