- Hello, my beautiful doves. My name is Mina. Welcome back to my channel. On this channel, we talk
about fashion and culture, and this video for today is going to be on Victoria's Secret. (ominous hip-hop music) I wanted to do a video
on Victoria's Secret because Hulu released a new
mini docu series in July called "Victoria's Secret:
Angels and Demons." And of course I watched it, because, if you guys don't know, Victoria's Secret is a massive
underwear lingerie company, and they were particularly dominant in the 90s and early 2000s. They're still around now, honestly, even into the 2010s. Okay, anyways, the
documentary mostly focuses on Les Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein. Les Wexner was the former
CEO and founder of L Brands, which owned Victoria's
Secret, Abercrombie and Fitch, Express, and Bath and Body Works, and Jeffrey Epstein was
Les' close friend for years. So I don't know, I don't
know what I was expecting. It wasn't, like I wasn't
expecting really a true crime doc, but that's kind of what
they leaned towards. But anyways, I was inspired
by this documentary to do my own little
investigative journalism on Victoria's Secret. And I thought I would make a video sharing with you all what I found, including the rise of Victoria's Secret, the fall, the scandals, and where they are now situated in the greater lingerie industry. (ominous hip-hop music) Before we get into the
appeal of Victoria's Secret, I thought maybe we could get
into the appeal of lingerie as a whole. So I guess we should
define lingerie first. I mean, to be honest, I feel like everyone
has their own definition when it comes to clothing terms, especially if they're from
different regions of the world. For example, in the U.S., a lot of people refer
to the term underwear as meaning only the bottom, so briefs, thongs, et cetera. In the UK, a lot of
people consider underwear to also mean bras, so bras and bottoms. And on a lot of online retailer sites, they kind of just use the
categorical term of lingerie to be the all encompassing
term for the underwear that they sell at that store. For me personally, I associate lingerie with
fancier undergarments, so garments with lace
detailing, or bow detailing, or garments that are
made of satin, or silk, or some other luxurious feeling fiber. But for the purposes of this video, I'm gonna use underwear
as the catch-all term for all undergarments, which will include briefs,
bras, corsets, like et cetera, and lingerie as a fancy subset
of the underwear heading. Does that make sense? So for much of underwear's history, it's fulfilled three major
purposes, I would say. Modesty, functionality, and fashion. Modesty is the most obvious one. In the 18th century, if you weren't wearing stays or corsets, you were considered to be
a loose, immoral woman, which is why I think it's
really annoying in period dramas where the costume designer
purposely excludes these support garments
in the name of feminism, because it's a very 21st century idea to look back at these
garments and be like, oh, they were extremely oppressive. But women who were living in
that time didn't think that. It wasn't considered feminism back then to get rid of your corset. You were just, like, weird. People thought you were weird. As for functionality, an
example I can think of is before laundromats, the way
people would launder clothing was through this very
intensive, straining process of washing clothes like this. There's a lot of historical
reenactor informational clips that you can find on YouTube about how people washed
clothes in that time. But it's just, it's a lot of work. So in saying this, it
didn't make sense for people to wash their nice silk dresses or even their thick wool jackets every single time after they wore them, because, one, you'd
probably damage the fibers, and two, it's also just a lot of work. To combat this, men and
woman would wear underclothes like shifts and petticoats that were usually made of linen or cotton and could be more easily washed. These clothes acted as
a sort of sweat barrier between the skin and your outer clothes. And then of course, for fashion, a lot of these support undergarments would help shape the body into the fashionable
silhouette of the time period. In the 19th century, we
had bustles and corsets, and even in the 16th century, women wore farthingales and
bodies, later known as stays. Looking at undergarments from
a 21st century perspective, a lot of feminists will say that garments like the
corset or the WonderBra are oppressive, because they mold a woman's body to fit this standard of beauty that was created by the patriarchy. I think it's true, but also, like, not fully true, because at the same time, if you have a naturally larger bust, and you're not wearing any
kind of support for it, like you're gonna have back issues. So I don't think bras
are the be-all-end-all evil force of the world. But with that said, the way that they've
been marketed in history usually doesn't focus
on the comfort aspect, it usually focuses on the
"Let's get a man," aspect. For example, in 1994,
Playtex WonderBra ads featured model Eva Herzigova
wearing a pushup bra, showing how a bust can be
shaped and then objectified to fit social imperatives around sexiness. The ad slogan, also, is "Hello boys," indicating that modifying the bust shape is ultimately for the benefit of men. Another example. H. Addison wrote this 2008 opinion piece for the Times titled, "British women are pants
at buying underwear." I'm gonna read an excerpt from it. "Gray saggy knickers? Holey vests and fraying bra straps? Sound familiar? If your knicker drawer
is more Bridget Jones than Eva Herzigova, it
seems that you're not alone. According to a survey, only a third of women
bother to push the boat out and match their knickers to their bra, and more than half venture no
further than Marks & Spencer for their undies, with a third admitting to being seduced by the power of the practical
but unimaginative multipack." So Addison seems really
concerned by the fact that women out there are buying underwear for functional purposes
over aesthetic ones. And the language he uses is
really darn passive-aggressive, like, "Only one-third of women will buy matching bras
and knickers"? (laughs) The article ends with this quote, "All in all, the nation's knicker drawer has never looked unlovelier, not so much "Hello, boys,"
as "Not tonight, darlings." I mean, it's pretty disgusting
to read that now especially, but that was the rhetoric
that went around for years, especially in the 90s and 2000s. It's like, you wanna impress your man? Buy a nice expensive pair of underwear. Of course, some women have also argued that wearing lingerie is for them, and that they'll even wear
it when they're alone, when no one else is watching. And they'll say like, "How can this be a patriarchal construct if I'm enjoying it?" So not to drag panopticon
theory into this, but panopticon theory was
like the only thing I retained from my multi-thousand
tuition and college, so we're gonna bring it in. Basically, a panopticon
is a prison structure that features a guard tower in the middle. The guard is able to see every prison cell that surrounds it. Meanwhile, the inmates
can't see the guard, and have to assume they're
always being watched. Hypothetically, this means they are behaving themselves constantly. In the 1970s, French
intellectual Michel Foucault thought the panopticon
was a relevant symbol of social control, and how it functions in our society. People will watch their own behavior because they've internalized this idea that they're always being watched. This is called self-surveillance. So some feminist scholars will argue that women have internalized
these societal messages about how to behave as a woman, and that's why they feel
good wearing lingerie. By practicing patriarchal
ideals of femininity in their own bedrooms, they are engaging in self-surveillance. I don't know necessarily
if I fully agree with that. I think it's all true to a certain extent, because gender roles are
taught to us from a young age. You can't really separate
gender from societal constructs. But at the same time, I
totally understand the appeal. Like, I love lingerie. For a long time, I wanted to
have my own lingerie brand. So I get it. I'm not shitting on anyone who enjoys lingerie for themselves. This is just the argument that's been laid on
the table by academics. Well, let's get into the
origins of Victoria's Secret. In 1977, Roy Raymond opened up the first Victoria's Secret store in a Palo Alto, California mall. He wanted to create a comfortable space for men to buy lingerie for their wives. And he came up with this idea because he was looking for
some lingerie for his own wife in the department store I. Magnin, but felt extremely
awkward and uncomfortable, and assumed other men
probably felt the same way. So he came up with this idea to offer them a more intimate,
and cozy, and relaxing space to buy luxury goods for
their girlfriends and wives. He told a Vogue reporter
that the original stores were designed to make
men feel comfortable, so he used dusty rose and dark wood. Private, fanciful, a little bit sexy. He then started up a mail order
catalog tied to the business where people could place
orders over the phone. Then in 1982, retail mogul Les Wexner, who we talked about a little bit earlier, Les founded The Limited, and his company bought Victoria's Secret, which had grown to six stores
by then, for $4 million. And he pretty much rejected
Roy's original idea. According to Dan Finkelman, senior vice president at Intimate Brands, Wexner geared his strategy towards women, because he believed that
women had more buying power in this particular industry. - All the women I know wear
underwear most of the time. All of the women I know would like to wear
lingerie all of the time. - Finkelman adds, "If we gave women a chance to feel sexy in a wonderful, romantic environment, they prefer that than
going to a mass merchant to buy a three-pack." Victoria's Secret did hang
onto this European glamor for a while now. Sure, the new VS updated
the colors, patterns, and styles of their garments, but they still wanted to
maintain this upscale snobbery, which separated them
from their competitor, Frederick's of Hollywood, which was stereotyped as
being trashy and raunchy. As part of this upper-class charade, VS put in their magazines that their headquarters were in London, when really they were based in Ohio. And when the mail order
catalog was still running, the automated message when
you called their number was this English woman
speaking seductively. "Hello, and thank you for calling the Victoria's Secret
catalog sale center." Sorry, that's the best I can do. Similarly, on television for decades, Victoria's Secret ads would be narrated by an unseen woman with an English accent. - [Narrator] Victoria's Secret introduces the world's most advanced bra. Body by Victoria IPEX. The revolutionary new
Body by Victoria IPEX comes to Victoria's Secret March 1st. - The vibe ended up shifting, though, at the turn of the century. In the late nineties, there was this rise of sex and kitsch in the fashion industry. For example, Tom Ford had
a breakthrough collection with Gucci in 1996, which married the irony of
kitsch to luxury materials. Sex and the City premiered in 1998, covering taboo topics in ways they'd never seen before on television. And then, of course, the
leaking of Paris Hilton's tape. - The idea of sexuality and what was sexy during the 2000s was really
a radical and fast change. There was all this romance about the original muse, Victoria, how smart, educated, and
well-raised that she was. - [Frederique] I project
a normal kind of woman who likes to feel
beautiful, nothing sleazy. - And that was just
not resonating anymore. - So at the turn of the century, Victoria's Secret models transformed from the minimal makeup,
high-class socialite to the heavily made-up and
scantily dressed Angels. The term Angel comes from a
commercial they did in 1997, featuring Stephanie Seymour and Tyra Banks to run its Angel underwear collection, and the name stuck to mean
any model or ambassador working for Victoria's Secret. In 1995, Wexner and his chief
marketing officer, Ed Razek, decided to host a fashion show, which was an annual tradition until 2018. In the early days, it wasn't televised, but in 1999, they paid for ad
space during the Super Bowl to promote the livestream of that year's Victoria's Secret show, which ended up drawing in so many viewers that the website crashed. The fashion show has since been broadcast in more than a hundred countries, and helped drive up almost
7 billion in annual sales. Not too shabby. Over time, it also became more lavish, with celebrity music artists performing, like Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, and the Weeknd. In 2000, Gisele Bundchen wore the most expensive item of lingerie ever created at the time, a 15 million diamond and
ruby encrusted fantasy bra. The show also became more camp, with models wearing abstract outfits that you couldn't buy in stores. - One of the truisms of show business is that corny can work, and the wings were corny. And yet, the press loved it, the audience at the shows loved it, and they worked like crazy. - And due to the publicity of this event, and how much money VS poured
into it every single year, it became a very aspirational
job for models to get. ♪ Do you believe? ♪ ♪ Do you believe? ♪ ♪ I believe in miracles,
I believe in miracles ♪ ♪ I believe, I believe ♪ - [Ivan] The angels. - Ivan Bart, president
of IMG models, said, "It was highly legitimate. A model would do their
high fashion editorial, their runway, an ad campaign,
and Victoria's Secret. - I think Victoria's Secret's
like the most important. I think that's what girls want to do when they turn into a model
and they come to America, that's where they wanna reach. (ominous hip-hop music) - But at the same time of all the success, Victoria's Secret was
also, behind closed doors, a breeding ground for misogyny and abuse. For example, in 2001, the VS fashion show was
hosted by actor Rupert Everett who leaned on some misogynistic quips. For example, in the broadcast, he says... - Security is tight, and so are the girls. - [Mina] And then later,
after warning viewers to... - [Rupert] Lock your wives
or girlfriends in the attic. - He takes us on a virtual
tour of Heidi Klum's body, even rubbing his face up and down her leg. Like, literal jail. Jail for him, please. - As I (smooches) kiss my
way (smooches) up her legs, I'm thinking, (smooches)
I'm thinking, (smooches) I'm not thinking, (smooches)
what am I thinking? (gasps) A hair! Don't worry, Heidi, I've got
my tweezers in my makeup bag. Yeah. Ha! (laughs) (Rupert gasps) - Bitch, what the fuck! What the fuck! (screams) The models themselves also got smaller. One study I read measured
the physical body attributes of Victoria's Secret
models from 1995 to 2018. They found that model bust,
waist, and hip measurements decreased from 32.9, 24.7,
and 34.9 inches in the 90s to 32, 23.6, and 34.4
inches in 2015 to 2018. And this is really interesting, because over the last 21 years, the average size of the American woman has actually increased, so the math is not mathing. Also, if you guys remember what the 90s and early 2000s was like, dieting culture was huge. It was mentioned in
virtually every chick flick, every rom-com, every magazine. People were going crazy
over celebrity diets, and just like the idea of losing weight. And because of this rhetoric
going around in society, I feel like no one batted an eye when Victoria's Secret models came forward in interviews and et cetera, explaining their dieting
regimens before the shows. And to make things worse, Victoria's Secret execs
and PR even encouraged it, like, made these diets seem aspirational for any kind of aspiring model. For example, model Adriana Lima talked about how she
would phase out solid food for days before the fashion show, and not even drink water
12 hours before showtime. Like that just, like,
doesn't sound healthy. That sounds, actually,
incredibly dangerous, especially to restrict
yourself from drinking water. Water! And in 2015, Ed Razek boldly told Forbes that when one model asked him
why she wasn't cast one year, he said that while she was
Instagramming from nightclubs, Adriana Lima was jumping
rope for three hours. Around 2018, the tide was
really starting to shift in the fashion industry when it came to diversity casting and representation politics. So when Vogue interviewed Ed
Razek about whether or not Victoria's Secret was planning
to diversify their casting for their upcoming shows, he said that he had actually no interest in hiring a plus-size
or transgender models. He told Vogue, "If you're asking if we've considered putting a transgender model in the show or looking at putting a
plus-size model in the show, we have. We invented the plus-size model show in what was our sister
division, Lane Bryant. Lane Bryant still sells
plus-size lingerie, but it sells a specific range, just like every specialty
retailer in the world sells a range of clothing. As do we. We market to who we sell to, and we don't market to the whole world." He also added, "So it's like, why don't you do 50?" By the way, here he's talking about the size range available at VS, which at the time was 30A to 40DDD. "Why don't you do 60? Why don't you do 24? It's like, why doesn't your show do this? Shouldn't you have
transsexuals in the show? No, no, I don't think we should. Well, why not? Because the show is a fantasy." Yikes! Like I can't even believe
he had the audacity to say that in an interview. And of course he got
completely flamed for it, as he should, as he fucking should be. But it's just like so, so
disgusting that you would be, one, like that you would even
think that in the first place, but two, feel so shameless about it that you would openly and
brazenly talk about it in a huge magazine that
a lot of people read. But of course the
misogyny did not just stop at the modeling side of the company. No, no, no. Victoria's Secret released its infamous "The Perfect 'Body'" campaign in 2014 to promote their new
Body lingerie collection. But the models all looked
the same in the ad, implying that only a
light-skinned, thin woman had the ideal body. The campaign got a ton of backlash, with several petitions going around telling Victoria's Secret they needed to cut down that campaign because the messaging was harmful. Eventually VS did change the slogan to "A Body For Everybody," but the poster of the 10
identical models stayed the same. Arguably more dangerous
than Victoria's Secret is their brand aimed for
teenagers called PINK. PINK was introduced in 2002
for girls ages 15 to 22. And usually, if you
remember the mall layout, the Victoria's Secret store would be like this side of the mall, like this side of a store, and then PINK would be right next to it, and you could kind of go back and forth. There was no real wall
separating the two stores, at least in my hometown. In 2013, PINK launched
a marketing campaign called "Bright Young Things." Other than the fact that the
collection was just plain ugly, it also featured garments
with pretty salacious slogans, like, "I dare you," on the
back of lacy underwear. There was also a low
neckline t-shirt that said, "Enjoy the view," and a pink and orange thong that said, "Call me," on the crotch. Let's remember these products
were aimed towards children. Maybe my mom was right not
letting me shop at PINK. (laughs) In terms of scandals, though, we've literally just dipped our pinky toes into the kiddy pool, because, you know, as I
said earlier in the video, Wexner was besties with Jeffrey Epstein, but that's not all. Jeff also allegedly used
his connection to Les to recruit young women to be
models for Victoria's Secret, but it was really just like a scam where he would allegedly
assault said women when he had them audition at his mansion. All allegedly, of course. I have to use the word
allegedly for legal issues, but trust I am a believer. So yeah, he told women and young girls that he was a modeling
scout at Victoria's Secret despite having no such position, and according to model
actress Alicia Arden, this was exactly how Epstein lured her to a Santa Monica hotel room
and assaulted her in 1997. Maria Farmer, who worked the door at Epstein's New York mansion, also told the New Yorker
that all these young girls would go in and out of that mansion for auditions for Victoria's Secret, and a lot of them were pretty young, because they would show up wearing their school uniforms still. One anonymous woman
testified of the experience, "I'd spent all of my savings getting Victoria's Secret lingerie to prepare for what I
thought would be my addition. But instead it seemed like a
casting call for prostitution. I felt like I was in hell." Executives claimed that they did tell Les that this was happening in the mid 90s, but he just ignored the problem, continued to be friends with Epstein, and then even gave Epstein his
mansion in New York in 1998. Even when Wexner allegedly
severed his ties with Epstein, finally, in 2007, Victoria's Secret continued to work with MC2 Model Management, An agency whose owner, Jean-Luc Brunel, has been accused of operating
a trafficking operation for wealthy men. Disgusting! Disgusting. Ed Razek was also in a
number of scandals, himself. Models have come forward about
how he would harass them, like verbally, but then
also physically as well. Like he would try to kiss
them, try to grope them, try to get them to sit on his lap, just like crusty disgusting behavior. And what's worse is because
he was top dog at VS, like a lot of people were
afraid to speak out about it. - Ed's assistant made a comment. She said, "If I had a
dollar for every time a sexual harassment case
came across my email, I'd be rich." And like, Ed laughed,
other people laughed. And it was just like,
I felt really awkward, but I also laughed. And it was just like
this very normal thing to make a joke like that. - One model, Andi Muise,
said that in 2007, she was 19 at the time, and Razek had invaded her to dinner. On the way to the restaurant,
he tried to kiss her. She denied and he persisted. And then for months he
sent her intimate emails and even suggested they move in together in his house in Turks and Caicos. She tried to remain polite
to protect her career, but then when he asked
her to come to his home in New York for dinner, she skipped out on it, because being alone in his house understandably made
her very uncomfortable. Soon after, she found out for
the first time in four years, VS did not pick her for
the 2008 fashion show. Coincidence? I, I really don't think so. And then, of course, Victoria's Secret is a fast fashion brand. It was owned by L Brands for
the majority of its timeline, and L Brands has sweat
shops in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Jordan. And in the 90s, Victoria's Secret also used prison labor, as well. There was an episode on the
show "Orange Is the New Black," which is a comedy drama about this woman who was
sentenced to prison for 15 months because her ex-girlfriend
was a drug runner, and she was pulled into it somehow. It's honestly been a really
long time since I watched it, and I think I only watched
like the first three seasons, which usually happens for me. I don't know if this is
what everyone else does too, where it's really hard to
continue watching a show after three seasons. Like, that's kind of when I
cut off for every single show, except for "Mad Men." But I do remember reading or hearing about this one episode that was in the show, where they have the girls sewing lingerie for a brand called Whispers, which is clearly a reference
to Victoria's Secret. Moreover, the brand lacks
transparency and accountability. It received 21 to 30% in the
Fashion Transparency Index with no evidence of fair
wage along its supply chain. They were also under severe speculation when Greenpeace found a
high level of phthal, ff, phthalates? Phthalates in their fabrics. The problem with phthalates is that they cause hormone imbalances and are considered highly toxic. (ominous hip-hop music) In 2018, brand insights from YouGov showed that women's perception
of Victoria's Secret has declined since 2013. According to the site, the brand has found itself
caught up in the Me Too moment. Its annual fashion show
featuring its famous angels aired only a month after
allegations of sexual harassment came out against Harvey Weinstein. The show saw its television
ratings sink 30%. Between 2015 and 2018,
sales also began to falter, in part because more body
positive underwear brands, such as aerie, ThirdLove,
and LIVELY cropped up, taking market share. And between 2016 and 2018
VS' market share in the U.S. dropped from 33% to 24%. Boohoo. You know, people were tired
of Victoria's Secret's antics by this point, especially
during the Me Too movement, but people were also fed up
with their sizing systems. Once again, the brand has
offered cup sizes up to triple D, but that's actually
not that big of a size. Courtney Killpack, an award-winning bra specialist with Nordstrom's, explained, "There's over 19 cup sizes, and VS only carries seven, and there's over 10 band sizes, and vs only carries six." At the start of 2019, activist shareholder Barrington Capital sent a letter to Wexner
recommending ways to improve growth at Victoria's Secret. In the letter Barrington's
CEO, James A. Mitarotonda, wrote, "Victoria's Secret's brand image is starting to appear to many as being outdated and even a bit tone deaf by failing to be aligned with
women's evolving attitudes towards beauty, diversity and inclusion." Hear, hear, James! After receiving that letter, it seemed like Victoria's
Secret tried to take some steps in the right direction. They appointed two new
female board directors, and introduced model Barbara Palvin, who is not plus size, but definitely a step away from the 23 inch models of VS' past, as well as transgender
model Valenti Sampaio. Coincidentally, the
same day that Valentina shared a photo of herself on Instagram tagging #vspink, Wexner announced that Razek was resigning in a memo sent out to employees. And in November 2019,
the company confirmed they had officially
canceled the VS runway show. The biggest PR move,
though, is that in 2021, Victoria's Secret launch
their newest campaign, pivoting from the angels
to the VS Collective, a group of entrepreneurs and activists that includes Megan
Rapinoe, a pro soccer player and gender equity campaigner, Eileen Gu, the Olympic
gold medalist skier, Paloma Elsesser, a
plus-size, biracial model and inclusivity advocate, and Priyanka Chopra Jonas, an Indian actress and tech investor. Martin Waters, the new chief
executive at Victoria's Secret, said, "We needed to stop
being about what men want and to be about what women want." Finally! It only took you 30 years to get here! The VS Collective is
supposed to advise the brand, promote the brand, speak for the brand, collab with the brand. They're kind of like, they're ambassadors. Like they are not just models. Like they're supposed to be more involved in the process of brand branding. The company has also
done an internal haul, so there's a new executive
team, a new board of directors, and because the company went public, they split from L Brands, so they're not even
connected to Wexner anymore. Store mannequins also come
in new shapes and sizes, and the Angels imagery was phased out. The company also expanded
its production selection to include sportswear. And for the first time, Victoria's Secret introduced
a Mother's Day campaign in May 2021, which featured a pregnant model, and began selling nursing bras. While these are like some
pretty good developments, there are some things
that still need to change. For example, Victoria's Secret still does not have a plus-size line. Their current sizes for
swimwear and sportswear only go up to XXL. To put it into perspective, competitors like Good American
offer a plus-size range that starts at 2XL, and a swimwear brand called
Nomads offers sizing up to 4X. Founder of Nomads Taylor
Long shares her critique. "When a brand like Victoria's Secret uses deceptive marketing tactics, not only are they tokenizing
the plus-size models they use, they're also deceiving their customers. Victoria's Secret is
one of the many brands that are trying to capitalize
on the size inclusion movement without doing any of the hard work, which would include designing, producing, and carrying plus-sizes in their store. If smaller brands with
much smaller budgets can design and produce inclusive
styles and size ranges, then there's absolutely no reason why Victoria's Secret can't." And then of course they're still ranked "Not Good Enough," on
the website Good On You, which does research and
ranks corporate brands on their ethics and sustainability. They write on the website, "Victoria's Secret has
few eco-friendly materials in its collection, which is why its rating
is 'Not Good Enough.' We found no evidence
the brand has a policy to minimize the impacts of microplastics or minimize textile waste when
manufacturing its products. Victoria's Secret, along with
many other big-name brands, signed up to Greenpeace's
'Detox My Fashion' program back in 2011, and had set a deadline to
eliminate hazardous chemicals by 2020. Unfortunately, 2020 has come and gone, and there's no evidence
it's met its target." VS' labor standards are also
ranked "Not Good Enough," because none of its supplies chain is certified by labor standards. Now I could not end this video without talking about Savage X Fenty, which has become the new
big lingerie retailer. They even had their own runway
show for the first time, in collaboration with Amazon Prime, the same year that Victorian's
Secret axed theirs, which of course spurred
a lot of comparisons. But whereas VS was all about
the traditional runway, with skinny models wearing barely anything strutting down a catwalk with musical performances in the backdrop, Savage X Fenty's show was a performance featuring Rihanna, the
founder of the brand, and other lingerie clad models performing dance numbers
on top of futuristic cubes. Savage X Fenty also featured
a diverse cast of models, including Slick Woods,
Isis King, Laverne Cox, and Paloma Elsesser. Probably also because
Rihanna is a black woman who has talked about
social issues in the past, people believe her desire for inclusivity comes from a more authentic place, whereas Victoria's Secret, unfortunately, reads as a PR move no matter
how many ways you slice it. And unlike VS which touted
super strict regimens and dieting, the Savage X Fenty
models talk about things like eating chicken nuggets
with barbecue sauce. As Ariana DiValentino writes, "Becoming a Victoria's Secret Angel is something that would-be customers are supposed to aspire to
rather than identify with. Meanwhile, Savage X Fenty
targets potential customers by resonating with who they
are and what they like, not who it thinks they should want to be. Victoria's Secret created
this celebrity culture around its models, in part because I think they
tried to get this legitimacy in the high fashion world. This worked for a long
time because honestly, people had a really big fixation
on models back in the day, specifically in the 90s and 2000s. - Victoria's Secret really understood, we're very hungry as a culture for beauty and beautiful people, and they just sort of fed
us what we all wanted. - Supermodels had almost
gone to the next level and became these kind of celebrities. They weren't even supermodels anymore. They became something else. - I think nowadays though, the reason that tide has turned is because we've just
become so much more aware of what the modeling
industry demands from models, and it's actually not as
glamorous as these Vogue outtakes used to make it seem like. We keep hearing about these
awful dieting regimes, and these awful exercising regimes, and the plastic surgery that
models are pressured to get, and the way that they
age out the industry, and the way that they're
abused by designers, or casting directors, or agencies. The curtain has just been lifted, and I think the mystique
of the fashion model has died with it. Of course there are still
people who aspire to be models, there are always going to be, but it's just not the
same as it used to be. - Years later, you hear, you know, I hear from agents, "Oh, we all knew he did this. And we all know she did that, and we all, but, you know, we just turned our heads because we made so much money." I was kind of shattered
myself to think, like, "Wow, I can't believe, like, you knew you were sending
models to these people, and just hoping that
something wouldn't happen. It was really, the
complicity was shocking." - But at the same time,
Fenty is not perfect. They offer a VIP membership
subscription service, which is $50 a month. A lot of people on the
internet have complained about signing up for it without realizing because the site's UX is really confusing. And then they got all these
charges, and they're like, "What the fuck?" It just like, doesn't even
sound like a good idea. I don't know why anyone would willingly sign up for it anyway, because most people would
not spend $50 a month on underwear. Also on Good On You, Savage X Fenty is ranked
the lowest ranking, which is "We avoid," because the company offers no transparency about any of their practices. And then of course, synthetic
fabrics are also used, like polyester, and synthetic fabrics
are not biodegradable. They can take hundreds
of years to break down. And even when you're washing them, they bleed microplastics into the water and kill marine life, so, much to consider here for the future of the underwear industry. If you wanna know what I recommend, I personally really like
Knickey for basic underwear. They're climate neutral,
incredibly breathable, and honestly they do run a
little bit pricier for underwear, for basic underwear, but I find that it's totally worth it, because I wear mine so often, and they're in still
like amazing condition compared to all the underwear that I have bought from Uniqlo
or Target in my lifetime that have gotten holes
within the first year or six months of wearing. I don't wear bras, also, so I can't really comment on good bra, bra brands, but in general, my main rule for underwear
is to look for organic cotton as the fabric, especially in the gusset region, do not wear polyester in the gusset region of
the underwear, please. And for sustainable fancy
lingerie, I'll put a list, some links in the
description of some options. I haven't bought from a lot of 'em 'cause I don't spend that
much money on lingerie, like I don't really buy
lingerie that often, so I don't know, I can't
personally testify for them, but these are brands that
have been recommended to me. I think at the end of the day, Victoria's Secret is moving
in the right direction. They're definitely slower
than everyone else, but they're moving, at least. (laughs) But then, of course, I also think that any fast fashion brand that builds its brand
image on empowering women is contradictory, because at the same time
you're saying all this like, "Yeah women!" stuff, you have poor women in the global south dying over making these
clothes for like 2 cents a day. So once again, the math is not mathing. Okay, so that's all I
have for today's video. Please let me know in the comments what you think about Victoria's Secret, what you think about Savage X Fenty, if you have any underwear or
lingerie brand recommendations that you personally love that are also on the sustainable side. I would love to hear those things because I'm always on the lookout. And yeah, I hope you have
a lovely rest of your day, and I'll see you next time. Bye! (smooches)
