How Victoria's Secret's core customers have completely changed
The retailer is credited with making lingerie an everyday necessity instead of something for sexy special occasions.
But it's worth noting that the brand was not originally designed for women.
Victoria's Secret officially launched in 1977.
According to retail lore and as detailed in Slate, the brand began when Roy Raymond wanted to buy his wife sexy lingerie as a gift, but didn't want to appear suspicious buying women's underwear.
Naomi Barr of Slate noted he had the ingenious idea to found a company that would facilitate shopping for underwear. He wanted it to be an exciting, sexy process that would make men feel comfortable, not perverted.
Barr wrote:
"Raymond imagined a Victorian boudoir, replete with dark wood, oriental rugs, and silk drapery. He chose the name "Victoria" to evoke the propriety and respectability associated with the Victorian era; outwardly refined, Victoria's "secrets" were hidden beneath. In 1977, with $80,000 of savings and loans from family, Raymond and his wife leased a space in a small shopping mall in Palo Alto, Calif., and Victoria's Secret was born."
Curiously enough, Victoria's Secret's beginnings highlight an issue: the company was selling something geared towards men rather than women. A peek at a 1979 catalog shows woman sprawled out in provocative positions.
"It was a small store, and it was Victorian-not English Victorian, but brothel Victorian with red velvet sofas," Leslie Wexner, founder, chairman of CEO of Limited Brands (now L Brands), told Newsweek in 2010. "There wasn't erotic lingerie, but there was very sexy lingerie, and I hadn't seen anything like it in the U.S."
However, Newsweek notes the brand was on the brink of bankruptcy.
It was at this time Wexner and his company acquired the brand and set the wheels in motion for what it would ultimately become. Gearing the brand towards women could save the brand.
After all, giving women an opportunity to purchase sexy underwear at a mass retailer was groundbreaking. The birth control pill hit the market in the '60s - the sexual revolution for women had just broken ground.
"Most of the women that I knew wore underwear most of the time, and most of the women that I knew I thought would rather wear lingerie most of the time, but there were no lingerie stores," Wexner explained to Newsweek. "I thought if we could develop price points and products that have a broader base of customer, it could be something big."
He was right.
"The great thing that Wexner did was recognize the huge white space in the market that was unspoken for, and he brought in innovation," Craig Johnson,, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consultancy in New Canaan, Connecticut, told Newsweek. "He made sexy mainstream. That was his genius."
"The great thing that Wexner did was recognize the huge white space in the market that was unspoken for, and he brought in innovation," Craig Johnson,, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consultancy in New Canaan, Connecticut, told Newsweek. "He made sexy mainstream. That was his genius."
Marshal Cohen, an analyst at NPD group, told Newsweek that Wexner was responsible for showing underwear outside of one's pants. "He made it a trend; all of a sudden women wanted people to see what they were wearing [underneath], and inner wear became outerwear."
Founder Raymond died in 1993 after reportedly jumping off of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Wexner shifted focus to female shoppers, and it worked - for awhile.
"At one stage, Victoria's Secret had a very fresh, new perspective," Jeetendr Sehdev, Professor of Marketing at University of Southern California told Business Insider. "Women were very much aware that this is a media ideal of beauty, and they bought into it to a set degree."
Perhaps now, Victoria's Secret simply needs to widen their female demographic as women's self images continue to evolve away from the lingerie model ideal and embrace natural bodies.
Sales at Aerie, American Eagle's lingerie brand, have been skyrocketing since the retailer stopped using airbrushing in ads.
"Body image issues are beginning to be addressed - not just because of the media's influence but a large part of the way parents, mothers deal with their own bodies," Dr. Vivian Diller, psychologist, former model, and media consultant told Business Insider.