Money Talks: The Rise and Fall of Victoria’s Secret
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Hello, and welcome to money talk, a bonus podcast series from slate money, where we chat with brilliant and interesting people. I am Emily pack of x IOS and am also cohoes of slate money. And today we are talking about brows.

Well, not really, but I thought that I would get your attention if I said both. So i'm here with laun sherman, a fashion correspondent at puck. Hi laun.

hi. Thanks for having me.

And i'm here with chantel fernanda, a features s writer for the cut.

Hi Milly. Thank you so much for having us.

There are the authors of this great new book called selling sexy Victoria secret and the unraveling of an american econ. This great dive into not only the history of Victoria secret, but sort of feminist culture and evolution over the past, I don't know, fifty years, the golden edge of retail, how we got fast fashion in the first place.

So at the beginning, all I really knew about Victoria secret sort of downfall, that lex weaker, its founder, which he isn't. Victoria secrets founder, even so, is right off about, wrong about that. But I knew that like wax, or maybe had tied to Geoffrey estein, but that's just not the story at all.

This book is such a deep dive into so many things. And when we come back, I want to start at the beginning with the companies, sort of humble start back in the nineteen seventies. You know, a story that involves a trip to one thousand hundred and seventy times square where a husband was buying vibrators for his wife. But for work, IT was for work. So that's all coming up on sleep.

Many talks.

Apple card is the perfect card for your holiday shopping. When you use apple card on your iphone, you'll learn up to three percent daily cash back on every purchase, including products at apple, like a new iphone sixteen or apple watch ultra apply now in the wallet APP on your iphone subject to credit approval, apple card issued by golden sex bank USA salt c city branch terms and more at apple card dot com. So until I read your book, I had no idea that Victoria's secret was a company launched by this Young couple royan a raiment back in one nine hundred and seventy seven. How did they get started?

Well, if actually, like a very modern story, roy was A N B A at stanford. So you hear about all these people, like at business school, they get the start up idea. But he was in the late sixties there and really wanted to be an entrepreneur.

The north face, which was founded in the bay area when that started out, he actually was like an MBA, working on different business plans for them. He did nothing he did came to fruition. But he got the start up bug very early, long before that was really a thing in america, is especially for product companies.

And when they were living in new york city, he was a marketing y executive at A C. P. G. Company, and gay was a physical therapist and a teacher college instructor. SHE needed essentially vibrators to help her physical therapy patients and asked him to pick the story and look like, as this would happen, we've learned many things of a Victory cigaret where the story becomes a reality. But gay said that he asked him to sort of pick up a vibrator in the red light district in york city one afternoon.

And he realized, specially like time square, and that time period was so val, and he thought, oh, there's like nowhere for Normal people who either just want to practice actual illness or want to know that have a health reason to have a vibrate is nowhere to get one. So he was he thought this was sort of the era of the rise of the catalogue, because the suburbs were exploding, and people who needed to buy the things is to buy IT at the five and time. And he thought, oh, why don't we make a really nice, like standard, pretty sterile catalogue that has sexual wellness stuff, like sex toys, instructive videos, all this stuff that would help people be more comfortable with the category? And IT became up.

IT was called zAndra. And IT became a pretty big business. And from there he was inspired to sort of take the same idea and apply IT to underwear, a laundry y, which was, at that time, either, but a very, very high end exclusive shops that were really intimidating for most customers or at maces.

And I IT was totally sort of standardized, just the basic, basic. So he thought, why don't I make IT a comfortable place to for men and women to be able to shop? And that's how Victorious cigaret was born.

Yeah, this is a time when most retail IT was all these department stores. There wasn't the segmented. Like you go to one store for your sneakers, you go to one store for genes and one store for bras.

But Victoria secrets really out at the front of that. And so they found the store. And IT seems like it's doing okay, but it's also not doing very well. And that's when lex westner enders the picture you have.

the Raymond you they didn't have experiences running this kind of a business at the scale, and they were doing pretty well, but they were not able to manage the costs, especially roy. I think he, you know, invested a lot in each of the stores that he opened into a handful around the bay area.

And I got to the point where they needed to bail out and well know who I think was at that time already really distinguished himself nationally as this retailed revolutionary with the limited, which is a store that he opened in his mid twenty years, kind of a rebellion against his parents, who had been shopkeepers, and he had seen an opportunity to open a store with a more limited type of a peril and cheaper. And his bet was completely right, like his parents and soldier of name brands that they bought from, you know, middle men in new york. And his business undermine that.

That business model and Carried, you know, clothing with the limited on the label. And IT was a huge hit, and especially by the early eighties when he was thinking about acquiring different businesses, which he did, including lane, bryan and others, and he came across Victoria secret and saw huge opportunity with that business. Going back to you, we're saying about this department store versus specialty retail model of you go to one place for one type of style or one type of category. He was really the special to retail pioneer in the united states and totally disrupted department stores with his stores, which would later include you express in bathroom, body works in abronia and Victoria. Secret really later became kind of the crown jewel of his massive retail empire.

I want to talk about the limited and a few things. Well, so like one innovation that he was on top of or one edge was like no narrow retail shop, that only one kind of thing. But the other is he is like this fast fashion pioneer.

You note in the book that when he was getting started, like seventy percent of close sold in the U. S. Or more than seventy percent were made in the in the us, which sort of like astonishing. I don't know what the number is now, but it's got to be like two percent or something.

I think it's under two percent. 他 只要 and the .

way he sort of made that happen is was， I thought, really interesting like he found this guy in new york who just had these connections where they in china and hong kong. Hong kong? yeah.

And so he developed this network, got the staff made overseas. It's cheaper. And none of this is about fashion per say. I mean, wessinger had this thing that you guys write about where he wants to be a fast second. Ah can you explain a little bit more about what that means and what that looks like today? I feel like everything today is a first second.

Yeah it's definitely he was sort of proto ara or proto agent m in this idea of at that time you really couldn't get you like Normal people didn't have access to trendy close.

You are sort of given what you were given and the way that the fashion world worked prior to the sixties and seventies, was that like a department store or would send one person to europe for the shows? They would buy one channel suit and then they would make copies of IT. And you would see you for bonwit teller er and IT was actually manufacturer in the U.

S. By these companies. And if that could take three years for something that was on a runway to sort of make IT to to the store and what he did, I mean, the turnaround time for the manufacturing, first of all, he was unafraid of asia.

So I met the sky marty trust, who you mentioned, who had worked for a company that produce sweers in hongkong, real ized, that there was like a huge opportunity to produce the same quality with a higher margin or close the same quality with a higher margin abroad and build a business around the weaker, eventually acquired marty trusts manufacturing business. But wax or realized very quickly that like he, he didn't care about being the leader in design or esthetic or whatever, he cared about offering the customer what they wanted as quickly as humanely possible. And I think that's what the fast second thing is.

It's about almost. We talk a lot about democratizing fashion now, but IT really was about let's get them what they want is quickly as possible at the best value possible. And he was willing to go to asia, which at the time, I mean, even now we talk about me in the U.

S, A lot IT was really look down upon to produce things in a particular in china. And he decided that value would trump that, that we are thinking. And so the fact that he was able to kind of train forecast, find a trend, identify IT turnaround in like they're turn around times, I think we're sometimes two months.

Even now most fashion brand that turn around time for manufacturing something could be six months to a year. So he was just very quick on all of that. And if you look at companies like inditex and h and m, you what is detected on detects on ZARA and also mosel duty and a couple other businesses, you look at the way they Operate.

A lot of IT is derived from the way waker managed his, the limited first and then Victoria secret and a combin fitch and all these other businesses that he incubated or developed. And that became huge. So he was very interested in final pattern.

He'd sent all his employees overseas that shop for trans. Yellow was everywhere. Lets make everything yellow.

And he could do that very quickly. Now, this is twenty thirty years before nata, once nothing to have happen, like game over. And everybody was doing this.

But he really had the foresight, and he also managed the relationship with the U. S. In terms of IT wasn't OK for business leaders to do this kind of thing in the seventies and early eighties. And he was able to navigate the in a really careful way that by the time after I did come around, he was so ahead of the game that so many of his rivals in terms of that speed to market in manufacturing.

right? nta. And I mean, china entering the W T. O. This is all before all of that happen. It's it's really I was pretty amazed and I wanted to talk to you because i'm kind of old, I guess.

And I group in the eighties and I really had thought about the limited in a very long time. But just reading the book, I remember going to the mall, going to the limited, and there is a specific item, the forensic sweater. Everyone had one, everyone wanted one.

And I was looking at pictures online just now. It's just like the boring is looking sort kind of like baggy oversize sweater. Vanek, is that cable net or just like stripes? I don't even i'm not a fashion writer. It's just like a regular sweater.

I actually don't know what they would be called there.

It's not table. No.

it's not not cable net, but no.

but IT has a certain type of net. Yeah yeah. It's funny because in reading the book, so many of my friends have been like, is this the sweater? Because they're like, cannot believe that the ster.

like, lose their money. People would wear the was like, sturt pants were really installed for a hot second back then. And you'd wear IT with the sturt pants.

And then I was reading, and then you guys describe this sweater was like a phenomenon, I don't know, of an equivalent item of clothing. And twenty four that I could say, like everyone wants the x thing. Maybe.

I don't know, maybe legings at something like that.

Yeah, IT was thirty dollars back then, which I didn't do the math, but that's actually quite a lot of money. And just struck me how cheap clothes are now, but that sort of A A side. But how big was the forensic sweater for them? Like is that would took them sort of up to black buster status and kind of like got weaker into that kind, like where fied retail? absolutely.

The reporting from the time said that the limited was selling the most clothing globally because I was selling the most cold thing in the united states. It's hard to know if that's exactly true, but at the time, I felt this is the most successful piece of fashion in the entire country.

And IT was a model that they were able to replicate with other things like out back red, which was they could because he had such a vast network of stores and walls across america, he could test that forensic sweater in certain markets. And then, based on what colors people liked, or what shapes or how the necked was shaped, could roll that out across the rest of the fleet and really take advantage of that. So that became their model of a test, and learn was literal.

And because they had the sourcing network through marty trust company, where they could really quickly ship things in from hong kong and and build on what they had learned in this test and learn phase. You know, that was the method that they had with frenzy with with these other sort of, quote, capsule collection that sometimes shoppers thought was like a different brand. IT had a different names to kind of add to that excitement.

So that was part of the strategy that they used really effectively. And IT fits into this whole month. A of B, A fast secrets like he's only ever taking bets on things that he has some data to show that it's gonna successful. And fashion is so much about taking risks and trying to anticipate what customers want because you have to make the stuff ahead of time. That's where retailers get into a lot of trouble. And the people who've been able to mitigate some of that risk in some way, whether it's you know a desire A I having this of last minute of manufacturing that they built on her SHE and today has taken that know that model even further. Those are the winners in this market.

The place in time where he would take risks was if he saw something was selling well, he would push his buyers to buy more of IT if they had these famous monday night meetings with weaker for much of the time, he was in charge of the business. And he would say in this and where the sales executors, marketing executors would present, like how things were going.

And a lot of times he'd say that selling well, why you bought more of IT, why are you? And he would, he would push them till like go really hard on stuff and that's the friends of sweater which by the way, I would say the rib in net is how you would describe this um which is simple. And the funny thing about that sweater is that also in some ways save the Victoria seeker catalogue, which at one point was really struggling with or wasn't they could be a big business.

And they put the forensic sweater and version of IT in the Victoria seeker catalog with a different label, and IT lew up in there to IT perform really well for them and help them you move forward. So yeah, he was really into, if something worked to go hard on IT and not hold back. And so that was like the one place he used all the data. And once the data show that he was on the right track, then he would be a little more confident, a little more bold.

You mention the Victorious, you create catalogue. And I honestly think I remember the pictures of the model with the forensic weather on, but no pants. Yeah, let's talk about how the catalog kind of evolved over the years.

You have some great photos in the book of these models, and these really like kind of gazi but untouched photos, like you can see their pupa hair kind of through their underwear and everything and IT IT looks a little pornographic. And I mean, the company was mAiling these catholic out to, like every households in america. How is that thinking about how I was selling laundry a women and like what what kind of women IT was selling to? They were selling to yeah.

One of the interesting discoveries of researching this company is how much the catalog changed in different areas of the company, like the pubic hair era, which was really sort of the the late seventies, early eighties, when the Raymonds were running again, and, you know, they were shooting in these mansions and same parties go. And there are something sort of surreal and strange about the poses at the women are and they're like on the phone and these freely bedrooms yet, but there's something .

kind of on the phone and they're pounds all the time.

Yes, there's something sort of dangerous lurking in the back. But I was also really inspired by, kind of like those twiggy images and and other fashion photographers from the period who were more surrealist. And then when in the eighties, after wester required IT, there was a period where he got through a basic instinct style, the hair was more tea.

There is more male models there in these kind of palm beach mansions, B I, you know. And then there was an angle filia areas, sort of british aristocratic kind of seeing women in these against mansions, but like very well appointed beds. And sad, you know, she's and IT was interesting because this is where the character Victoria really came to life.

And this idea of what idealized femininity and kind of this indulgence, a lot of things that were subbed that I think really hit the sight guys and was part of what made that catalog fame as because was unlike anything else that people were receiving in their mailboxes, even when catalogues are really popular. And I had this editorial bent, and kind of, yeah, there there is a lot of happening there. You know, other stories of teen boys stealing them in all those kinds of things. I think IT was a really powerful mode of communication, not just of selling. IT was like a really powerful marketing vehicle for this idea of what the Victoria secret woman looked like and what her life was like, which was a complete fair to see, you know, even from the beginning.

Yeah, I was interesting before you said lex wax ones trying to figure out what the customers want and sell IT to them. But IT seems like with Victoria secret it's like let's figure out what men wanted, see women look like in when they wearing their underwear and sell IT to them there. Is that too much over simplification?

I think part of IT, but the the interesting thing is for most of the company's trajectory, IT was women who were running the business. So even rowing gay, pretty much every executive around them. There were a couple guys, but most of the senior executives they had of marketing, they had of buying the head of stores.

They were all women in the same thing, a limited brand. So the C. E O of Victory secret was a woman for most of the time, until he, he took over that job at the end is like, uh interm C E O, and then appointed another woman and mostly appointed women.

And for the twenty, the actually thirty years IT was really on the rise. There were women running that business. And then also the catalogue was run by three women.

So I would say there were conflicting things happening. So yes, there was this idea of we're selling something is going to you look good for your husband. But then there is also this idea of we're going to sell you something that you have to wear launcher anyway.

Why don't you sell something? It's going to make you feel sexy. And so I see the women in the business look like, were they thinking about the male gaze too, of course. But I think they really believe they were empowering women to feel beautiful. Whether the men were more focused on how are we going to make these women look attractive for other men.

So it's interesting like every generation of this company would ask, what is sexy now? And if you ask the five top executives at the business of the time, they were all the difference answer. And so it's amazing that they were able to so less these things. But I was more complicated than just like, let's make women look so their husband's want to have sex with them.

I think that the even the idea, the phrase, the male gaze was not something that people talking about at that time. They're think about selling and what successful. And this is what was functioning, you know, across fashion marketing.

This was before the idea that you would want to have body diversity and advertising. The idea was, oh, you wanted to aspire to be thin or beautiful like the women in these advertisers. And no one really question that that, that worked. And I think you can look back at IT now with today's eyes and see something different.

But the shift that happened in the nineteen nineties with the arrival of the Angels was really significant in terms of the of the imagery that's when you in the catoche have the models leaning against a ferri wearing, you know Angels wings in watery. So there's you know things got more explicit at that time, but that also coincided with a time of you know huge sales growth for the company for a bunch of different reasons, not just the advertising, but I think they felt like this strategy was working. And by all account.

IT was yeah, I wanted to talk to about the Angels, the first Victoria secret fashion show aid in two thousand, one just a couple of months after nine eleven, which I was kind of jolted by. And that seems like really launched, I think, the era that most people would be familiar, worth with Victoria secret, the Victoria secret Angels, josel bunch with the wings.

And in the book you sort of layout how there look really like lines up with sort of the car style of the early odds. And like, you know thunk, underwear peaking out of low rise jeans, very skinny women. It's all happening for Victoria, he read in that moment. And that went on for a while, right?

Yeah totally. I mean, I think the Angels aesthetic that started really in the midnight ties but bloomed in the early two thousands is really what they kept with until you know the more recent turnaround years, like after twenty, twenty, basically. But they were responding to what was happening in the culture was a really sexy time.

For example, in high fashion, if you think about tom ford at gucci and IT was a provocative time. Mtv girls gone wild, and they were sort of tame by comparison to a lot of those things. But picking up on those same ideas about sort of sexual liberation through exhibitionism and using the same sort of colors that we're happening in black buster films and music. And I think part the reason why people remember that period so well as because they're so effectively communicated to just. Means to amErica through super bow commercials, television commercials of fashion shows, ads, the stores, the catalogues like IT was all a lining to create this idea of this american beauty standard through these models.

okay. So let's take a break here. When we come back, we've talked about the rise of Victoria secret, and now I wanted talk about the fall.

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I think we need to talk about ed raise. He is a main character in this book, that is, to be sure, the york times publish and expose on him sort of right around the me too era when there was one of these stories coming out every other week. He is why I think I asked that question earlier about here are men deciding what women want? And he has this one quote.

I think IT was either in your book and the new york times peace or both. We sell, hope not help. So the company, you know, wasn't selling larger size Browned future plus ze models.

IT seems like all of that was fine. And ed risc behavior was fine. And IT was some objectionable behavior sort of. There was groping. There was pressuring models to be romantically involved with him and then getting rid of them or not hiring them back if they wouldn't IT seems like that was all overlooked.

And fine until around the twenty teens, twenty two thousand, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, when the culture started shifting away from the ad risk of the world way before me, too. And that's when things sort of start to turn for Victoria secret. Do I have that kind of very Victory?

Sek was still growing. IT had its peak years in twenty, twenty sixteen. We feel like some of the problem that were so painfully clear, like around twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, really started to develop in the earlier twenty tens. And a lot of IT had not to do even with like corporate culture or IT was connected to corporate culture, but IT was about how to manage such a big business.

And shifting trends looks like the rise of the broletto, which is like a softer wireless bra that was starting to become super trendy, and the rise of competitor brands like area that were bringing, you know, they were theoretically not air brushing their models and they had more body diversity. They were they were hitting on that cultural change that was about to become really appeared that Victoria secret didn't want to participate in. And I think ed raise, as the architect of the Angels and having been so successful with that for so many years, you know, he and weaker were hesitant to abandoned anything that the brand was known for at that point.

I think that was part of reason why they they failed to evolve years after, you know, all their competitors know not direct competence, but years after the rest of the fashion industry had said, okay, we need to work with influencers who have different body types and hire different types of models and rethink how we communicate with people. The company was so big and as so successful. I think IT was they were blinded by that success.

But I think ds scrutiny, specially like for example in that article, came at a moment when the company was already struggling. And I think when the company was really successful, these things were difficult to highlight because how can you see he is working, everything's working and the company still growing. So what what could culturally really be that wrong? You that's a pretty standard reaction.

And a lot of businesses, right? It's like only when harvey weinstein films are not doing so well that people are you know brave enough, understandably, to come out and talk about their experiences with them. We've seen that a lot of different sectors.

Yeah throughout the book you have these like very powerful women at the top of Victory secret, but just below western and radic. And this is when you start to see why that's problematic. I think because these women are saying, like, let's hire change gender model.

Let's bring in someone place size, let's get an influence certain like they wanted to make those changes. But then you have these two older man wax or who used to be you know quite innovative transaction kind of person. But just I mean, I don't know if like this is the future are all headed to as we age, but you know just resistance to change once they found what works for them you .

yeah I think when you have a lot of success and you keep having success, and wesson was certainly someone who you know the whole adage of you don't want to to become the thing you're trying to disrupt.

I think he really, for the first forty years of business, stood by that and would push and push and push and push and push to make sure that they were doing IT, right? But I think when you are at the top of your game and you keep seeing performance going well, of course, he thought he was doing something right. And if you talk to executives that were there in the late two thousands, there are stories of him still pushing back and still trying to move forward.

And then you sort of see the shift where he just stops listening to people and also starts surrounding himself with people who don't chAllenge him. And so by the mid twenty ten, when this all came to ahead, there was no one there to tell him no. And so IT became harder.

And I think its just happens with people who are very powerful, like the more success they have, the less they question themselves. And he was just a sort of extreme example of that. And I was just they were in a bubble.

I remember a person who works in the fashion industry reaching out to me around two thousand and fifteen around the show and saying to me, why is everybody still okay with this? And I thought, you know what, she's right. Like, why is everybody engaging with this that feels so more than anything? I just feels dated IT just doesn't feel like it's with the times.

And I see this with companies time. I both covered the fashion industry. We write about a lot of different brands, a lot of different Price points. But you see this when companies are doing really well, they start to get, in many cases, just get boring. But in the case of Victoria secret, IT was really about becoming dated.

And and yeah, I think it's you could take IT out of this industry, apply IT to any industry, but it's just this matter of he had unprecedented success far beyond retail fashion. If you look at what he achieved, it's really remarkable. And so no one was pushing back on him.

So I thought, well, I must be right about all the stuff. And the reality was he needed to put that entrepreneur head on once again. And I think he just was too far in IT to be able to do so.

And what we found was so fascinating about Victoria secret is not that I had these struggles that it's had since amid twenty tens, but that I didn't have this kind of downfall before, especially after the two thousand eight financial crisis, which was so damaging for so many of its small piers. The tories seek came out of that crisis even stronger than I was before. They just managed IT so well.

And, you know, they came out of that with this hit product, which was the bomb shell bra that gives you two extra cup sizes, is like their formula was working really well. Even after the ball was starting to lose traffic. They seemed like the outlier, like safra and the apple store that could survive anything.

So it's remarkable that they lasted so long and pivoted successfully so many times. But then yet it's difficult, I think, especially after sharing gesture tourney was a CEO of the company a decade. SHE left at the beginning of twenty sixteen, and vector stepped into leading the company on a more data day basis for the first time in decades. And a lot of the choices that he made that first year would really be wildering to the executives that remained at the top of the company because they felt like he was violating that test and learn strategy that he had taught them so effectively. But yeah, things are really going off the rails, starting them.

And then I guess we should mention around them the information we surface that his close financial advisor who had given power of attorney to was jeffrey. And that really swirled up for him and became a story that kind of engulf him. Did IT lead him to resign? Or do I have that just tangled in my head?

IT was a factor. Um yeah. This information came out with more clarity after estein was arrest in the summer of twenty nineteen.

And to clarify, wax or says that his relationship with epsilon did, I believe I was in two thousand seven, around the time that he was charged for the first time in florida for, I think was child prostitution. So their relationship had ended, you know, for some time. And in weston or maintain never knew about este crimes.

But I think there was so much interest in that story, was so disturbing. These questions around who knew what when that IT put a lot of attention on vector, because he was, like the first and clearest client that obscene had ever had in this oppressive on world. And they couldn't have come at a worst time for Victoria secret and for wax.

And personally, given all the other chAllenges in the business and these cultural questions around, is the show good for society in all of those things? So um yes. And I think IT was a factor that LED him to step down. And in recent years, he's really, you sort of faded from public view, not that he was the most public person in the world, but he would give speeches sometimes he was so involved in columbus civic life, and he's really receded. I think as a result.

if they would have people over to their house houses, probably not the right where there are state they'd have like a big day out where like tons of employees would come. But also just like people in the community because he's so involved, he owns so much of ohio in terms of land and development, but also is really involved in the performing arts, in the medical system, like everything there's a wax branded is building around every corner.

So the fact that he had to like pull out of that part, especially as he is in he's over eighty in retirement age, that's the kind of stuff that if you're still active, you want to be really involved in. And the people who run those organizations have also had to distance themselves from him, which I think they feel a bit of sadness and shame about. So that was an interesting part that we didn't get too deep into in the book, but could proudly ly be a book in of itself.

Our producer, china just shared this amazing song, like right now will live on an empty. And the course is, I know Victoria secret SHE was made up by a dude there go.

yes. And the tiktok of that song like has him, I think, photoshopped with like a Victory secret .

hair on his added .

quite is quite .

a lot um where's Victorious secret at right now?

It's at a super fascinating moment right now. I think they just brought back their fashion show for the first time in six years. The reaction was mixed online.

They brought back a lot of the original Angels, but they're definitely at sort of a turning point, like, is this turnaround finally onna come together? Is he going to work? If y've had a revolving door of, you know, executives, ves and leaderships and strategies really throwing stuff against the wall, they got rid of the Angels.

They had this thing called the Angel collective, so many different campaigns and things that they've tried. And they just hired a new CEO, hillery super, who came from savage x fte, ryan's brand, which is one of the most effective chAllenges to Victoria secret, at least culturally, if not revenue wise. And IT will be interesting to see if under this new leadership, they can find a way to sort of reduce customers once again.

And I think there is an opportunity to do IT. It's very tRicky, is still have truly too many stores. It's probably a business that needs to shrink to grow or just shrink to be healthy. But I think glora and I looking at IT, especially over last month, it's it's a really fascinating kind of point of what's gona happen next with this brand because a lot of time has passed since, for example, weaker and raised left in the future is still unclear.

I just full disclosure. I am wearing a Victoria secret bra right now. Yes, I, yes.

that one. And tell us .

how what is IT? Well.

I have a teenage daughter and we went to the mall and he was like, let's go in there. And I was like, what OK and I IT was actually a great experience. Like, I was shocked.

The addressing rooms have these touch screens in them, so if you pick the wrong size, you can just ping bang, boom. And the a woman comes and gives you a different size to try on. You can order online from the screen.

I just thought I was really good customer service. And I asked my daughter, I was like to your friends like Victoria secret also, and he was like that we really like IT. And where else is there in the mall .

to get a bra? nowhere? no. Still no. One of the reasons they've been so successful is that it's not easy to make up bra.

And they had such a sophisticated network of stores that they were able to really hold on to that market chair. And even now, they still have a tremendous amount. Yeah, it's interesting to me.

I question if there is there there to Victoria secret anymore, it's not like the gap or even abba can be where there's a lot of nostoc or goodwill towards this brand. I think like there is a little bit of nostril and people have nostre a for that early two thousand era, generally of Victoria secret sort of fits into that. But I think because of the way wax are Operated, IT was never IT was an emotional brand because buying a Brown an emotional experience.

But the brand itself was an emotional in the wave at like a gap or or in our combi was and that was because my jeff re. Ism, Mickey drexler cared much more about, can I digging into the consumer and making them feel something where I don't think wax nir Operated that way. And he was kind of like, you have to do this.

This is your only option. And IT was a little more of an arrogance and less emotionally driven. That said, I think because IT wasn't as emotionally driven, IT had a much longer shelf life because no one who say they're sick of Victoria seeker if they need a brow, so they're gonna just keep buying brows.

But right now, I think the chAllenges, people have a lot more options or maybe not at the mall, but know, skims and on mind. Every there's all these tiny little brands that I served up on instagram stories every day, and you can easily access that self online. So you don't have to shop in the story of you don't want to.

And I think like they haven't figured out how to be a brand in this era, and it's it's really hard. But most brands haven't figured don't understand IT. And and so they've just got this tremendous chAllenge ahead of them, their giant business that doesn't actually make that much profit because they sell everything so deeply until the consumers used to buy IT on sale.

Then they have all this like weird people are conflicted because of the active buying a bra is so emotional actor. And then on top of that, there isn't a ton of good will towards the brand in the way you would think of goods in terms of gap or some of these other brands of the era. So it's just a really big chAllenge, and I hope they can do something interesting with IT.

But the one thing that is always good to remember in retail is that like even if they fail, it's gonna be around for fifteen, twenty more years. These brand don't go away. They just like slowly, slowly.

They're so do you see penny like that? Just does IT they slowly, slowly die off. And specially because when you have such a sophisticated retail network, these leases are forever.

And so you just keep shopping goods, you sell IT for whatever, just basically give IT away. And it's a cycle so they could turn IT around for sure or but it's going to be really hard. And the more likely outcome is that IT will slowly deteriorate the point of nothing inness thirty years from now or or what have you?

yes. So I wanted ask you one last question. I mean, we have managed to get through an entire podcast and not talk about the election, which as we're taping, was very recent. But I couldn't help thinking about the return of the Victorious secret fashion show and the return of Donald trump because Donald trump sort of has a Victoria secret sensibility of all the a lot of the women that's around him. Kind of remind me of the Victoria secret early two thousand sensibility in the moring suits and closed, but like the same kind of like long way be here.

So I was just thinking, like, is his come back good for the Victoria secret brand in some way? Is there like some kind of post me to backlash era that upon us that would make the brand more relevant again? Or I just spinning an idea.

I am sure laun has slightly different from views, and I do on this. But I think we had even started to see that in the biden era during the first trump administration, were like resistance culture became pop culture. I think Victoria secret really suffered as a result of that, because in an attempt to update with the times and b quote, te more vogue IT all felt disingenuous.

And that kind of, they were anna lose, lose situation. And there was a moment where all consumer brands were getting more political. And I think Victories, he could really struggled in that moment.

Obviously, as we saw and I think in the recent years, brands have pivoted. We've already seen sort of that diversity trends start to receive in fashion advertising and fashion brands and know identity politics becoming less of a thing to use to market to to shoppers. And I think trumps when only reinforces those ideas that culture has shifted and and what signal fy is exclusivity or wanting to belongs.

Coolness has has shifted. And I think in a way that will be beneficial to Victoria secret, because they can never win in that sort of super feminist again, like resistance era, because I was so an authentic to what they had been most recently in customers memory. So IT could be helpful to them.

That culture is shifting. Yeah, I generally agent to, but I truly, truly believe that consumers don't vote with their dollars. So any time you are trying to online with some sort of movement outside of what you're selling, I don't think IT ever works.

The levis saying their anti gun fine, that's I going to make someone buy levies or not by live yeah IT just doesn't matter. What matters is that people you feel like you're going to value and you like the thing that you're going to buy. And yes, I think that like IT helps that people aren't pushing back against things like that fashion show that just took place, which was they sort of checked a lot of boxes in terms of diversity and inclusion.

In some ways that actually was pretty diverse, like aged diversity, things like that in other ways, IT was just like pretty boring and not exciting. And so I think generally, I don't think it's great for them or or not great for them. I think the bigger thing is that they need to figure out a product that people really, really want.

And look, you had an amazing time and an experience in that store. A lot of people just aren't even been compelled to go into the store. Yeah they don't to think about that yeah or or they just don't even know that all that's unavailable, they haven't done a good job at communicating what's available in the things that the consumer cares about now, which is like a really good fit, a lot of variety.

good Price.

Yeah yeah. exactly. So my whole thing is like, sure, it's probably a little beneficial for them that there's like a throwback to that era and their husbands like empta woke thing going on.

But on the other hand, I don't think either way IT really affects IT, especially if you're selling something good. So we'll see IT is interesting that it's all sort of happening. And someone did text me that night and said is essentially saying that dollar trump is gonna elected the night of the show and that's exactly what happened. So yes, it's definitely related, but I don't know if I will actually benefit them from a financial perspective.

So that IT for a show today. Thank you both for coming on fun.

Thank you for having a Emily is really fun .

thanks to slate senior producer shana rough and to just mean Molly and sea plane, our motto for producing bent richmond is senior director of podcast Operations at least a month, is vice president of audio for slate. I'll be back in your feet on saturday along with ana human skin, elisabeth spires for a regular episode of slate money. And until then, thanks for listening.

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