rapinoe
NEW YORK (77WABC) – It’s no secret that Victoria’s Secret’s sales have been sluggish, forcing the once iconic brand to now undergo a major revamp.
The lingerie company announced a new marketing direction on Wednesday featuring a group of women not usually seen among their famous “Angel” models. One of those faces: women’s soccer star, Megan Rapinoe.
As the brand’s new head told The New York Times, it’s a change that has been a long time coming:
“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.”
Waters told the Times that Victoria’s Secret’s famous “Angels,” a crop of the most gorgeous supermodels in the world, will be phased out, saying he doesn’t see them as being “culturally relevant.”
Or, as Rapinoe had to say about the brand’s past marketing strategy:
It was, Ms. Rapinoe said bluntly, “patriarchal, sexist, viewing not just what it meant to be sexy but what the clothes were trying to accomplish through a male lens and through what men desired. And it was very much marketed toward younger women.” That message, she said, was “really harmful.”
In the Angels’ place will be the “VS Collective,” a group of seven women that includes Rapinoe and actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas.
