Victoria’s Secret is on to its biggest shift yet with VS Collective.
For a long time, Victoria’s Secret has been the standard for beauty across the globe. You’ve heard aspiring models dream of becoming an “Angel” and to don a pair of iconic wings on the VS runway. Long-time fans and viewers look forward to the colorful lingeries, the guest performer, and the models who made the cut to walk the runway. It’s been almost 3 years since its last show on 2018 and it looks it’s going to be last one, well, at least for the Angels.
Last June 19, Victoria’s Secret made an announcement about a dramatic change for the brand, and that change will start with retiring its “Angels” for good. Instead of the statuesque models that used to represent the line, they are collaborating with a new group.
The group is composed of seven ambassadors who are known for their advocacy in gender equality and body positivity. Under the management of Victoria’s Secret’s newly elected CEO Martin Waters, they are calling this rebirth as VS Collective. According to Waters, this is a dramatic shift for their brand, “and it’s a shift that we embrace from our core.”
The collective
The VS collective includes soccer player Megan Rapinoe, actress Priyanka Chopra-Jonas and plus-size model Paloma Elsesser. For Paloma Elsesser, the change inspired her to join the new Victoria’s Secret campaign. According to Paloma, she started modelling to change the world. So, the recent shift of the brand aligns with her values. She said, “With platforms like VS, where you enter the living rooms of all people, that’s where you make radical change.”
These new Victoria’s Secret ambassadors will represent a wider range of body types, gender identities, and overall redefining of what makes a person “sexy.” Aside from working on new product lines and various multimedia content, they will conduct different means to support women’s causes for the company.
What it means
With the cultural shift that #MeToo movement along with the years of criticism towards Victoria’s Secret’s collections that were made for narrow range of body types, Waters doesn’t see the “Angels” as culturally relevant anymore.
So, they recognized that the competition has become tighter with the growing popularity of Savage X Fenty’s body inclusive line. Also, these days, we’ve seen the rise of “athleisure” inspired underwears. It’s safe to say that there’s an increase in love for anything comfortable especially in this time of pandemic.
According to another member of the VS Collective, Valentina Sampaio, the first transgender model of the brand, said, “Today’s shoppers want to see themselves in ads, and they want to know that brands have some kind of value system that aligns with theirs.”
This is the era where people are a lot more thoughtful with what they consume. The prestige that comes with the brand is not all that matters anymore, but what these brands stand for.
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