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Victoria’s Secret, The Male Gaze, and an Illusion of Exclusion
I think it’s safe to say that as women in college, we all know the (sexual) connotations that come with the word “lingerie.” And while this may be a source of shame or discomfort for some—if it is, feel free to hop off this article—but while I support putting whatever clothes on your body for whatever reasons you want, that is not what this article is about. In this article, we will explore the un-sexy side of the lingerie industry, and how it has evolved from one of the main drivers of toxic beauty standards and objectification of women to the rise of women-owned brands that are founded on self-love.
It is no secret that for a long time, the lingerie industry has been tied to things like body image and self-esteem issues. This has largely been attributed to brands like Victoria’s Secret, which took the industry by storm in the early 2000’s. Too often—for too long—lingerie has not been meant to empower the woman that wears it, but as a way for women to cater to the male gaze.
The male gaze is a term that every woman in any feminist space has heard at least once in her life, but I don’t think a lot of us think critically about what it means. From Oxford Languages, the male gaze is “the perspective of a notionally typical heterosexual man considered as embodied in the audience or intended audience for films and other visual media, characterized by a tendency to objectify or sexualize women.” In short, in feminist theory this is problematic because of how basing the images of women on the fantasies appealing to men has detrimental effects on how women view themselves, determining their worth based on how they are viewed by others instead of how they view themselves.
Victoria’s Secret embodied this in the early 2000’s, their models setting an unrealistic beauty standard of tall, thin—yet still curvy—young women who achieved this look through unhealthy eating habits, extreme exercise regimes, and even dehydration. For women the message was clear: there was one box you had to fit into to be beautiful and “sexy. If somehow you didn’t fit in it, you had failed. Both lingerie—and the models wearing it—became a performance, what others wanted to see and not reflective of who women really are or what they would actually want, all while selling themselves as “empowerment.”
This exclusionary beauty standard was also rooted in whiteness. Despite historically featuring hardly any models of color in its fashion show lineups, Victoria’s Secret has certainly cashed in on cultural appropriation. Disrespecting and inauthentically crossing the line between inspiration and appropriation, utilizing significant symbols of Native American cultural dress such as headdresses. What makes this cultural appropriation is the hypersexualization of the headdress as a part of a lingerie outfit, as well as the fact that the headdress was used without consultation from any authentic voices, and the harmful view of Native American culture only being appreciated through exoticism—because it is “strange” or “unusual.” Victoria’s Secret Fashion Shows have also faced criticism for hardly ever featuring Asian models. Brands like Savage x Fenty, a lingerie brand founded by none other than Rhianna—who has been praised for her inclusive makeup brand Fenty Beauty—are the antithesis of this. Savage x Fenty’s has featured models of diverse sizes and skin colors since its inception, true to Rhianna’s message towards lingerie as a means for female empowerment: “Women should be wearing lingerie for their damn selves…I want women to own their beauty.” (The Guardian)
This is the benefit of shopping from women-owned lingerie brands that were founded on by-women-for-women principles, that decentering of the male gaze, and have always focused on making the women that wear their products feel good about themselves. These brands break through the shame that is sometimes tied to lingerie by shifting the focus to it being all about the women wearing it as an expression of self-love. A great example of this is the brand Mentionables. The name itself is a play on underwear being “unmentionables” and something to be ashamed of. Mentionables, founded on the basis of empowerment through the brand’s “model-free lingerie shopping experience.” This idea removes comparison and the “cookie cutter” model body from the equation, inspiring body positivity. There are also several Muslim-owned lingerie brands founded by women, such as Hadiqa London and The Garment London, that utilize “model-free” marketing in order to introduce a modest and safe experience that finally empowers and includes Muslim women. Modesty being empowering is something that is not often considered in discussions of inclusive empowerment in the lingerie industry. This provides a shopping experience that embodies that beauty and confidence are found within, outside of others’ influence.
I will absolutely admit that I grew up walking past Victoria’s Secret and PINK stores, and have witnessed both how they used to be and what they have become. Like many other girls my age, I was absolutely dying for the day I was grown-up enough to walk in without shame—that day has yet to come, all of my bras are bought online, and will be until further notice—but now that I’m in the “target demographic” I do not shop at either store as much as I thought I would.
The two stores at the mall seemed like a rite of passage. It was what real women wore, looked like, the woman I wanted to be when I grew up. Of course now that I’m older, I know that this is not the case. The Angels I aspired to be now do not feel “real,” now that I know what it took for them to get there, and were not representative of anyone I really looked up to and wanted to be like. Being underweight my whole life and experiencing everything that came with it—painful periods that seemed to suck the life out of me, the doctor asking me if I was anorexic at every check-up, the body dysmorphia that came with being told I was the beauty standard while feeling like my body had failed me—I understand being skinny definitely does not equal being healthy, and it is definitely not the only way to be beautiful. The illusion has been shattered.
Victoria’s Secret’s DEI Makeover: Empowerment or Low-Effort?
I will give credit where credit is due when it comes to where a lot of the issues associated with the lingerie industry came from, but it seems as if I also need to give Victoria’s Secret their flowers for their new commitment to diversity and inclusivity. The iconic 2000s brand—like the rest of the lingerie industry—has experienced quite the rebrand in the 2020s, one that starkly contrasts their previously “exclusive” brand model and definition of the word “sexy.” They state, “We have moved from promoting an exclusionary view of what’s sexy, to celebrating all women throughout every phase of their lives” (VS Insider)
In their products, a wider range of sizes, with bands up to a 44, and cups up to a G. On the associate level, the brand has made a commitment to acting on this inclusive model through “measurable goals” and amplifying the voices of women on the associate level, “Through our annual Associate Opinion Survey…[where leadership receives] transparent feedback on what’s working well and what needs to be improved within our company.” Furthermore, introducing quantifiable goals that ensure people of color are represented in leadership positions, such as “achiev[ing] 25% representation of people of color for director and above home office positions by 2028” and holding themselves accountable for only “16 percent [of leadership roles being] filled by people of color. And women of color mak[ing] up 8 percent of these leadership positions.” (VS Amplify)
And after a six-year-long hiatus in October 2024, a return to the runway with the claim that Victoria’s Secret would be delivering a show that was reflective of who real women are, what they really want, and the brand’s new commitment to diversity. A show “where women take the reins and the spotlight,” as Tyra Banks opened the show with. The brand also seemed to respond to criticisms about the idea of the show being a male “fantasy” or a product of the male gaze, through removing the men from the runway and placing the voices of women at the center. Placing women’s voices at the center of a fashion show that had once been a huge part of how the male gaze in the lingerie industry imposed harmful beauty standards on women, and instead taking on a “by women, for women” was definitely a win for the reclamation of the lingerie industry for women’s empowerment.
The show also made an effort to showcase more ethnic and racial diversity among its models—something it received criticism for in the past—starting to move away from their previous attitude that whiteness was a requirement to be beautiful. But while this is a step in the right direction, there is still that gap in representation of women of color in leadership roles on the corporate level, showing that while the voices of women are being recognized by the company, this approach is still not all-inclusive or all-reflective of “real” women. Not all women are being heard, and you cannot claim empowerment of women’s voices unless the voices of women of color are amplified as well. The brand must continue to take these steps in order to truly reflect real women.
But, for some shoppers it was too little too late. The fashion show may very well have had the intention of showcasing diversity, through featuring two transgender models, a stark turnaround from former marketing chief Ed Razek’s claim that “they could not cast trans women because ‘the show is a fantasy.’” (Teen Vogue) Even including customers in the Fashion Show experience, by making the collection available to shop for the very first time. But for some shoppers, it was too little too late. While Victoria’s Secret has “previously stated interest in supporting adaptive fashion,” (Fashion Dive) there were no models featured that reflected this at all. The brand also received criticism for the way that plus-sized models were featured, “dressed in comparatively demure pieces for the runway…consistently followed by models that were so thin, so snatched, so airbrushed, and so increasingly naked.” (Allure)
To sum up, even though bras and underwear are something that pretty much every woman wears, the lingerie industry has not always been kind to women. From a problematic history shaped by Victoria’s Secret’s influential brand model of exclusion to the women that sought to shift the industry’s attitude away from toxic beauty standards and the male gaze and towards what make women feel good about themselves, to Victoria’s Secret following suit and delivering a bombshell of a rebrand with diversity and female empowerment seemingly at its core. Whether it was enough can be debated, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. At the end of the day—in the wise words of Rhianna—women should wear lingerie “for their damn selves.” Whether for you that’s the timeless VS logo or comes with supporting a small, women-owned business, or if modesty and shopping for lingerie aren’t mutually exclusive to you, empowerment is not “one-size-fits-all” and what you put on your body should be from a place of self-love.