Victoria's Secret already brought in more diversity over the last few years, so I don't think they need to constantly reinforce it. Sometimes the culture overcorrects and brands start trying too hard, and that's when it feels like bullsh*t. If they keep casting different looks and different women without making a big announcement about it every time, that's enough. Diversity shouldn't feel like a marketing strategy, it should feel normal. Otherwise it turns into forced inclusion, which is an awkward place to be. I don't think the body positivity movement fading from the spotlight means the message suddenly doesn't matter. The point already got across; message delivered. We don't need to talk about something nonstop for it to stay relevant. They've already shown more variety in bodies and looks, so now it's just about consistency, and seeing whether it was performative. As for the male gaze, I don't think it's this evil thing people make it out to be. Men are visual. It's biology, it's instinct, it's literally evolution. And in fashion, it's more often than not gay men making the decisions anyway, which is still a male gaze, only from a different lens. There's a place for both. Victoria's Secret was built around a specific aesthetic that people recognized instantly. If they veer too far away from that, they'll lose the "iconic" factor. Every great brand has a signature. It was "unattainable beauty." Sometimes unattainable beauty is the point, especially in lingerie. Not being able to replicate it is part of the fantasy. You can only call it empowerment when you're serving the very people you're claiming to want to reach, which is women, your target audience. When we're satisfied with the results on ourselves, and the products complement a range of sizes and shapes, that's when it becomes tangible. That's what sticks. Everything else is marketing.
I see this play out in my consultation room every single day. Patients come in with magazine tearouts or Instagram photos, and the first thing I do is explain why that exact result won't work for their body. Real empowerment in aesthetics means helping someone understand their unique proportions and what will actually look natural on them--not selling them someone else's ideal. Victoria's Secret can modernize if they're willing to let go of aspiration as their core business model. In my practice, we shifted from showing dramatic before-afters to educating patients on realistic outcomes for their specific anatomy. Our consultation no-show rate dropped 34% because people felt they could trust us. Trust requires showing up for bodies as they are, not as stepping stones to something else. The tangible version is inventory and access. I stock surgical supplies for patients across a 60-pound weight range because my results depend on having the right tools for different body types on hand. If VS wants credibility, their physical stores need to carry the full size range on the same racks, same fabrics, same day. Anything else is performative. Brands lose their identity temporarily during real change, and that's the point. I turned away patients early in my career who wanted cookie-cutter results because I knew chasing trends would damage my reputation long-term. VS needs to decide if they're building for the next fifty years or protecting the last twenty.
I run One Love Apparel where we release cause-focused designs monthly--veterans support, mental health awareness, anti-bullying--and here's what two years taught me: your audience instantly knows when you're borrowing a movement versus living it. We tried launching a Pride collection in 2022 without any LGBTQ+ nonprofit partnerships, and our usual customers called us out in the comments before we even finished the Instagram caption. Victoria's Secret can't modernize by just hiring different models--they need to change what they're actually celebrating in the product itself. When we shifted from generic "inspirational" phrases to specific cause language like "It's Okay Not to Be Okay" for mental health month, our engagement jumped because people finally saw their actual struggles reflected, not just their body type photoshopped into our aesthetic. The clothes became conversation starters about real issues instead of just another flattering fit. The male gaze problem isn't solved by showing more body types in the same sultry lighting--it's solved by asking who gets to define what's aspirational in the first place. We donate proceeds from each monthly collection to relevant nonprofits, which forced us to have uncomfortable conversations with actual advocates about whether our anti-bullying designs would resonate with kids who face it daily or just parents who want to feel good. That accountability makes "empowerment" stop being a buzzword.
I've spent 25+ years scaling companies built on trust and transparency, and Victoria's Secret's core problem isn't about body diversity--it's about credibility. When you spend decades building an identity around one definition of beauty, you can't just rebrand without earning back permission to lead that conversation. At Premise Data, we tracked consumer sentiment across 140 countries, and the pattern was clear: people forgive pivots when they see authentic structural change, not just marketing campaigns. The "male gaze" question is actually about who holds decision-making power inside the company. When I took over Accela, we didn't just change our messaging about civic tech--we rebuilt our product team to include the people we were serving: city employees, community organizers, everyday citizens. VS needs women who represent their new customer base in C-suite roles, product design, and creative direction. If the leadership looks like the old brand, customers won't believe the new one. Tangible empowerment means giving customers real control over the product experience. At The Transparency Company, we're fighting fake reviews by letting consumers verify truth themselves--not asking them to trust us. VS could do the same: let customers design collections through voting, publish unfiltered fit data from real bodies, show internal diversity metrics publicly. When I was at Accela getting citizen input on government software, we learned people trust what they can verify, not what they're told to believe. The decline of body positivity as a movement happened because it became performative. Brands that actually succeed post-backlash are the ones that shut up about values and just build products for the people they claim to serve. Less manifestos, more merchandise that fits.
Marketing Manager at The Teller House Apartments by Flats
Answered 5 months ago
I run marketing for a portfolio of 3,500+ apartment units, and here's what I've learned about brand reinvention: you can't just swap the messaging--you have to rebuild the entire experience around what your new audience actually needs. When we noticed recurring complaints about basic issues like "how do I start my oven," we didn't just update our website copy. We created maintenance FAQ videos that reduced move-in dissatisfaction by 30% because we addressed real friction points instead of aspirational imagery. The mistake brands make is thinking diversity is about who's in the photo. It's about whether your product solves problems for different people. When we negotiated vendor contracts, I didn't just ask for "inclusive" creative--I demanded annual media refreshes tied to performance data so we could continuously test what actually resonated with different demographics in Chicago vs. San Diego vs. Vancouver. That flexibility reduced our cost per lease by 15% while increasing qualified leads by 25%. Victoria's Secret can modernize if they stop treating "empowerment" as a campaign and start treating it as operational reality. Are their bra sizes actually available in all stores, or just online? Is their return policy built for bodies that fluctuate? I increased our tour-to-lease conversions by 7% not by changing our brand voice, but by adding functional content like illustrated floorplans and 3D tours that let people make decisions based on livability, not fantasy. The math tells you if you're authentic--watch your conversion rates and customer satisfaction scores, not your Instagram engagement.
I grew up with Victoria's Secret as the 'pretty store'. It was the place a girl could feel like a model, and it was the place her man would dress her to his taste. The target audience was the 'male gaze,' and because women desired it, we bought from the secret, the delicious secret. Today, beauty standards have been challenged as love has crossed cultural, racial, and other lines. Thick girls are called juicy, and voluptuous, curvy girls are not considered fat. Men's desires have evolved with the empowerment movement, as beauty standards were challenged and women embraced their natural curls, no matter how kinky, and bigger butts became a thing worth getting surgery to achieve. As women redefined beauty, men redefined desire. Victoria's Secret needs to decide who their market is - the man with the desire, or the woman who will wear their gear. Marketing wins when the target audience is clear. If Victoria's Secret is targeting the male gaze, he will spend to make his fantasy his reality. If the target is a female, speak to her confidence and her desire to love what she sees in the mirror, as women are less concerned about what men think and are very invested in how they feel about themselves. That is how the brand evolves. It needs to understand the avatar it is selling to, and there cannot be a one-ad-campaign-fits-all approach.
I've spent 30+ years watching reputations collapse when companies confuse messaging with action. Victoria's Secret's challenge isn't whether they *can* modernize--it's whether they'll do it when the cameras are off. We've seen this pattern with corporate clients: they announce DE&I commitments that dominate search results for six months, then the negative press returns because nothing changed internally. The "male gaze" identity problem is actually simpler than people think. Peloton didn't lose their fitness brand when they shifted from aggressive instructor culture after their safety crisis--they lost it because their *response* was slow and felt calculated. When Boohoo tried rebranding around sustainability while labor exploitation stories were still trending, consumers didn't buy it. Timing matters less than whether your operational reality matches what you're claiming. Here's what makes empowerment tangible from a reputation standpoint: search results that show diverse leadership making actual decisions, not just diverse models in campaigns. When we help executives rebuild after crises, the clients who succeed are the ones willing to put uncomfortable truths in their own press releases--who they fired, what policies changed, what the new org chart looks like. Victoria's Secret needs their head of product design and their board composition to be the story, not just their runway. The brand won't lose its identity by expanding who it's for--it'll lose it by pretending the expansion happened without actually restructuring how they design, size, market, and staff the company. Half-measures create the worst reputation outcome: you alienate your original base while the new audience you're courting calls you performative. You can't suppress negative sentiment when your own employees are the ones posting it.