Victoria’s Secret is doing a slow burn these days. Not a bonfire, mind you, but under CEO Hillary Super, Victoria’s Secret retains the title of the world’s biggest lingerie brand, holding about 20% of the American market, down from 30% a decade ago. The key word here, my friends, is stability, positivity based on solid reasoning, leadership and results AND Super’s grasp of the importance of a range of emotions in selling lingerie to HER!!

Victoria's Secret forecasted total net sales of approximately $6.45 billion to $6.48 billion for the full year 2025. For comparison, major competitor Skims—while rapidly growing and valued at $4 billion—generated roughly $1 billion in revenue in 2024.

Victoria’s Secret [IG] rolls out its Very Sexy Spring 2026 campaign with models Abby Champion, Ajok Daing and Celina Ralph. Priscilla Polley styled the shoot with photographer Dan Beleiu [IG] behind the lens, working with Victoria’s Secret Chief Creative Director Adam Selman. / Hair by Sonny Molina; makeup by Jezz Hill

The brand’s DNA today is the closest it’s been to its 90s identity and the sharp turn it took with the arrival of the Angels and the domination of the male gaze. For its first 15 years, the Victoria’s brand was built around the idea of the sensuality of the woman in the mirror.

Anne was adamant that VS clients embrace their own positive sensuality for themselves — not comparing ourselves to a supermodel, which is most often a no-win situation. Whether a Baylor University cheerleader, a 30’s stock trader in New York City or a happily married women with two kids and a husband who adored her in Seattle — our focus was HER.

Almost from the beginning of Les Wexner buying the Victoria’s Secret brand in 1982 from Roy Raymond for about $1 million, Wexner made a strategic shift — one that caused a rupture between the new owner and Raymond.

It was Raymond — not Les Wexner — who saw Victoria’s Secret as a place for men to be comfortable buying lingerie for the women in their lives. Wexner pivoted to target female shoppers directly by emulating the feel of European lingerie boutiques.

Anne knows that fact, because she was hired in the late ‘80s to accomplish that goal, first as a key merchant testing a home store, and then to organize and execute the first product development group in any of the Limited companies.

That assignment grew into the increasing importance of a VS-led fashion and design team leading product development [rather than VS vendors] — the structure VS has today.

NEVER did Anne bow to the male gaze, but it became clearer to her every month — a decade later when Victoria’s Secret soared — that Les Wexner not only had Angels on his mind. Getting a ticket to the VS Fashion Show for Wall Street guys became almost as big a win as a ticket to the Super Bowl.

Anne had no problem at all using supermodels and routinely did use them. Naomi Campbell opened her second fashion show. But she was dumbfounded over the idea of inserting Angels between clients and VS the brand.

It represented a betrayal of a precious relationship that she had cultivated with her '“woman in the mirror” focus. No marketing budget could buy the trust we shared with our clients.

Women never had to measure up to Angels status. We were good enough and frankly, the men in our clients’ lives loved us for sending that message. They lined up for blocks to shop Victoria’s Secret at Christmas. We did our little part to spice up marriages, fuel sexy relationships all over America. And the stock soared.

There’s no need to go through the torturous details of the VS saga into the land of the male gaze branding, followed by a 180-degree turn into the word ‘sexy’ being a bad, bad word. My writing is very consistent on this wretched saga.

In her recent interview with Fortune magazine, Super has me convinced that the worst days are behind Victoria’s Secret.

“SPECTACULAR. FANTASTICAL. UNSTOPPABLE. SEXY.”

Sanity has finally returned to Victoria’s Secret. These power words aren’t just adjectives about Angels and supermodels, and VS clients hoping for admission to their sorority. They’re the emotions the nation’s leading intimates brand is trying to evoke in customers. “More than anything, we’re in the business of feelings,” says CEO Hillary Super.”

When she got the call as CEO of Anthropologie — formerly of Savage X Fenty [where AOC loved her] — Super realized one important fact about the Victoria’s Secret opportunity. “That’s the biggest transformation opportunity in retail,” she told herself. “That was really appealing to me.”