Charlie abandoned them. Then they were sent to the outfield. And now, Victoria’s Secret is bidding their Angels adieu.
Five years after abandoning its then-ubiquitous catalogs that excited teen boys (and some girls) for four decades, Victoria’s Secret has announced that it would no longer promote the lingerie models as the, um, face of the brand.
According to New York Times, the brand will turn to a different set of women to promote the independent and strong spirit the company wishes to project. Women such as Indian actor and entrepreneur Priyanka Chopra Jonas; Eileen Gu, a 17-year-old Chinese American freestyle skier and soon-to-be Olympian; Paloma Elsesser, a 29-year-old biracial model and inclusivity advocate who was the rare size 14 woman on the cover of Vogue; and the pro soccer player and gender-equality activist Megan Rapinoe, will become the face and voice of the brand.
“When the world was changing, we were too slow to respond,” said Martin Waters, the former head of Victoria’s Secret’s international business who was appointed chief executive of the brand in February. “We needed to stop being about what men want and to be about what women want.”
The clothing and retail giant VS has more than 1,400 stores and had $5 billion in sales across multiple brands, including Victoria’s Secret, Pink, and Victoria Sport, with other beauty products in the works.
“As a gay woman, I think a lot about what we think is sexy, and we are afforded the ability to do that, because I don’t have to wear the traditional sexy thing to be sexy and I don’t think the traditional thing is sexy when it comes to my partner or people I’ve dated,” said Ms. Rapinoe. “I think functionality is probably the sexiest thing we could possibly achieve in life. Sometimes just cool is sexy, too.”