Sex Sells

0:03Hey everyone, it's Lauren Sherman here, host of Fashion People, fashion correspondent at Puck and co-author of Selling Sexy, Victoria's Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon. On this extra special bonus episode of Fashion People, you're getting a sneak peek into the book, which is a deep dive into one of the most complicated brands in retail history. And honestly, I'd say one of the most complicated brands in history altogether. If you like what you hear in this episode and want more, click the link in the show notes to order a copy of the book, the ebook, or the digital audiobook read by Allison Ryan.

0:41We chose her because she sounded more Gen X than millennial. By the way, Selling Sexy is available wherever books and audiobooks are sold. I hope you enjoy this excerpt from Selling Sexy, and thank you again to Allison for making it sound so, so good. All good work requires self-revelation. Sidney Lumet, making movies. Prologue, dreams and fantasies. In mid-October 2015, a 20-year-old model named Gigi Hadid visited Victoria's Secret's Midtown Manhattan offices with high hopes. She wanted nothing more than to walk in the lingerie brand's annual televised fashion show, by then an American pop culture institution.

1:34If she landed the gig, Hadid would prove her burgeoning modeling career was more than just a passing fad. She could become a super. For young models seeking stardom, Victoria's Secret once meant everything. Waiting for her inside a brightly lit white conference room was Edward Razek, the perma-tanned, silver-haired chief marketing officer, dressed sharply in a checkered suit. Then, in his mid-60s, Razek was preparing for the 20th edition of the fashion show he had overseen since its inception. He liked to call it the Super Bowl of fashion, but a more accurate comparison would have been something like the Ziegfeld Follies meets Moulin Rouge, with a dash of the Grammys.

2:22Hadid emerged from behind a screen, having changed into the requisite uniform, black high-cut briefs and a smooth push-up bra. Her long blonde hair was parted down the middle and flowed in loose waves. She almost teetered on her high heels while demonstrating her notoriously brusque runway walk across the room. Victoria's secret cameras were rolling, as they often were during these casting sessions, poised to capture the next TV-ready moment. Like this one. Razek sat behind a wide table at the far side of the room with three colleagues, watching Hadid carefully. She finished her walk with a pouty pose and a twirl.

3:02She stood politely in front of the table of judges. What are you doing on November 9th and 10th? Razek asked, hiding a smile. I don't know, Hadid nervously replied. Why don't you come join us, he said. Hadid shrieked. Really? She almost collapsed to the floor, only to pull herself back up and run over to embrace Razek. Hadid began instantly crying in joy and relief. Later that week, Victoria's Secret's social media accounts and Hadid posted a video of the moment. One of the happiest moments of my life, she wrote. The clip and Hadid's emotional reaction went viral. A few weeks later, Hadid realized her wish inside Manhattan's Lexington Avenue Armory.

3:52During the runway show's grand finale, she waved and danced for the television cameras, dressed as a sexy firefighter, red sports bra, low-slung, stiff yellow trousers, standing arm in arm with all the angels under a shower of confetti. Like many women born in the 1990s, Hadid grew up watching the television extravaganza every year and imagining herself walking down that stage. Through Victoria's Secret, she discovered supermodels named Giselle Bündchen and Tyra Banks, strutting down illuminated runways in bedazzled bras and feathery wings. Where else did women seem so powerful and desirable? Hadid's modeling dream was more than a youthful fantasy.

4:40Her wealthy mother, Yolanda Hadid, was a former model and now a reality television star. She had helped her daughter land a starring role in a children's campaign for the denim brand Guess. Shortly after Hadid finished high school in Malibu, in 2013, her career took off quickly. Her lean but athletic body, soft round face, and almond-shaped eyes made her unique. She was also charming and down-to-earth, drawing millions of followers on social media by posting candid behind-the-scenes clips and selfies. And yet, even after she had worked with Chanel, Tom Ford, and Vogue, her grandest ambition remained elusive.

5:24Victoria's Secret had rejected her from its show in 2013 and 2014. She wasn't ready, they told her. She needed to work harder, which meant working out harder. By the time Hadid earned Razik's blessing in 2015, Victoria's Secret had become the MGM Studios of American Retail, a multi-billion dollar machine in the business of blockbuster entertainment, a leader born in the golden age of its industry. Its studio head was the Columbus, Ohio billionaire Leslie Les Herbert Wexner, who had made his fortune in the 1980s by conquering the American Mall. Instead of movies, Victoria's Secret released elaborate commercials set in European castles and staged its annual televised fashion variety show.

6:19And instead of theaters, the brand counted more than a thousand manicured stores, the flashiest of which boasted glass staircases and leather-paneled walls. Instead of tickets, Victoria's Secret sold five for$25 panties and$45 push-up bras And instead of leading ladies, it had its angels Personifications of idealized European-American beauty Each one was the girl next door with a sultry streak Chaste, but alluring Never bitter, always approachable Pure and potent fantasies The target audience was young adult women, but the brand had an outsized effect on American girls born in the late 1980s and early 90s.

7:08This was a generation that would never remember a time before Victoria's Secret dominated shopping malls and Super Bowl commercial breaks. Like their mothers before them, these girls grew up on the same inescapable idea hidden in plain sight across American culture. They were told that female sexuality involved little more than simply being seen as sexy. It was a performance. And what did sexy look like? Victoria's Secret was happy to show them. All the while, the company scaled to annual sales of more than$7 billion, while consistently generating double the operating profits of its competitors.

7:51The unstoppable performance of Victoria's Secret was a testament to the retailing genius of Wexner, a self-made multi-billionaire, and, until 2020, the longest-running CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He had a two-year head start on Warren Buffett. Visionary merchants like Wexner dominated American retail in the 20th century. They had taste and instinct and watched their customers closely. They picked the right goods, the ones people didn't even know they wanted. They knew how to package their products with dreams of a better life. Wexner was 25 years old in 1963 when he opened the first location of his first store, The Limited, in Columbus.

8:41In the decades that followed, he capitalized on a great American pastime, shopping for things we don't need but desperately want at a sensible price. The Limited became the fast fashion prototype, lifting trends from the European runways and reproducing them cheap and fast for middle-class Americans. Wexner went on to launch and scale other retail mega-hits like Abercrombie & Fitch, Express, and Bath & Body Works. He liked to boast that a$1 ,000 investment in his nascent corporation in 1969 would be worth$45 million almost 50 years later. By that time, the crown jewel of his empire was Victoria's secret.

9:29In some ways, Wexner was not a traditional merchant. His genius lay in patterning, as he called it. He saw trends not just in hemlines and silhouettes, but in images and symbols. He noticed that stores decorated with clean white panels and black trim communicated luxury. The way colorful cotton underwear arranged across a countertop recalled the impulsive joy of shopping at a candy store. And in the 1990s, Wexner saw an opening for Victoria's Secret to borrow the allure of the high fashion world and distill it down to a commercial essence. The brand could take the glamour of that rarefied industry, its beautiful people and exclusive parties, and strip away all of the thorny bits, the avant-garde clothing, the self-seriousness, the high prices, the closed-door runway shows.

10:24What remained became the Angels, built on an American obsession with the rich and famous, with clubs that would never accept us as their members. They satisfied our fascination with biological impossibilities, women frozen at age 23, their jello mold cleavage always jiggling, and eyes always shining. At Victoria's secret, each delicate purchase tucked into the store's telltale striped bags fueled that fantasy. More from Selling Sexy, Victoria's Secret, and the unraveling of an American icon after this quick break.

11:06Hi, this is Jill Schlesinger, CBS News business analyst, certified financial planner, and the host of the Jill on Money podcast. With the new year upon us, there's no better time to take control of your financial life. And the Jill on Money podcast is here to help. It's your questions that make it possible for me to provide unconventional and I hope entertaining insights on your money, more importantly, on your life. Follow and listen to Jill on Money wherever you get your podcasts.

11:39Welcome back to this exclusive excerpt of my book, Selling Sexy, Victoria's Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon. Okay, let's get back into it. Speak to anyone who worked at Victoria's Secret since the 1980s, and the conversation invariably turns to a sinister figure who has now cast a dark shadow over the entire business, Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein was Wexner's financial advisor and confidant for nearly 20 years. Partially during the time Epstein sexually exploited and trafficked girls and young women. In 2019, a month after he was arrested on federal charges in New York, Epstein killed himself in his jail cell.

12:25Wexner has insisted that he had no knowledge of Epstein's crimes when they worked together and that they parted ways in 2007. Their confounding association has tarnished Wexner's legacy and the legacy of the brands he built. Epstein profited off their relationship and then used his wealth and influence to lure and entrap victims. These women's stories, the ones we know about, are the stuff of nightmares. And Wexner, wittingly or not, enabled this behavior by granting Epstein access to his fortune. Epstein's crimes raise obvious questions about his role at Victoria's Secret. Based on the testimony of multiple women, Epstein found some of his victims by posing as a recruiter for the company and pretending to audition models.

13:18But while Epstein helped Wexner manage high-level deals with outside partners, served as the lead advisor on several of his financial transactions, and managed much of Wexner's personal finances, he was not a presence in the lives of most Victoria's Secret executives, save for the occasional mysterious run-in. It would be easy to reduce Victoria's Secret to its association with Epstein, or to write it off as simply a frilly brand that capitalized on women's whims and last-minute Valentine's Day gifts. But Victoria's Secret is worthy of a deeper examination befitting its commercial scale and cultural influence.

13:59This was no ordinary retail business. From the beginning, most of the decision makers of Victoria's Secret were women, and their mission was to make other women feel good. To embrace their sexuality, to lead more satisfying sex lives and have healthier relationships. To experience their gender as an asset, not a liability. To feel powerful. For much of the 1990s, Victoria's Secret slyly presented itself as a posh British brand, following a directive straight from Wexner. The world Victoria's Secret created in the pages of its popular mail-order catalog was an American conceit of English manners and manners, an aesthetic fetishized by self-made people like Wexner.

14:51Victoria was always white and undoubtedly heterosexual, but she had layers. The models were often wrapped in billowing floral robes holding teacups. It wasn't all garter belts and bustiers. When Ed Reza gained more control over the brand's marketing strategy in the first decade of the 2000s, Victoria was smoothed down and simplified. She became universally taut, tanned, and silicone-augmented. Where the domestic comforts of elite society were once part of the aspirational vision the company sold, the focus gradually narrowed. Just youth, just sexy. The annual holiday catalog became the dreams and fantasies edition.

15:38Its models were no longer nestled under Christmas trees, but draped over gleaming Lamborghinis. Victoria's Secret's stores became supersized. supersized. Its bras became smoother and fuller. Revenues soared. The brand's idealized women echoed across the era's blockbuster films, television shows, and music videos, tying women's success to little more than their ability to attract men. Women dress to please men, Wexner told Fortune magazine back in 1985. You're not selling utility. That's why uptight women stockbrokers will put on a G-string when they get home. Like Revlon founder Charles Revson said, we're selling hope in a bottle.

16:28One generation's hope is another's burden. Padid was one of the last new supermodels to join the Victoria's Secret universe before the Angels era ended abruptly in 2021. In the years after her successful audition, as popular culture increasingly celebrated social and political activists, the brand came to be seen as an anti-feminist relic controlled by old company men in Ohio. Victoria's Secret closed dozens of stores as profit margins evaporated. By the time Razek and Wexner's made their exits in 2019 and 2020, respectively, the Victoria's Secret story was long overdue for a reboot. Wexner declined to participate in this book.

17:15We made a full effort to tell his side of the story, the good and the bad. The current leadership at Victoria's Secret also declined to participate and said in a statement that the company is focused on expanding our definition of sexy. It is remarkable that the brand's allure lasted as long as it did. Most fashion brands have a creative shelf life of 10 to 15 years before a stale smell wafts in. The hype fades and shoppers move on to the next new thing. And yet, despite the rise of countless would-be competitors, the decline of the shopping mall, and the rise of e-commerce and social media, shopping at Victoria's Secret remained, for decades, a rite of passage for teenagers and indulgence for their mothers.

18:03Until suddenly, it wasn't. By the time Wexner realized Victoria's Secret was sinking, he was a billionaire many times over, inoculated from contrarian thinkers. He was so accustomed to knowing better than his customers that he had stopped listening to them. Perhaps that's what happens when a business has no real competitors. The groundswells shifting our culture can seem insignificant from the top of an empire. The mythology of Victoria's Secret grew so powerful, it blinded him, too. You made it! It's Lauren Sherman again. Thank you for listening to this excerpt from Selling Sexy, written by Chantal Fernandez and me, and read by Alison Ryan.

18:52I hope you enjoyed it. Just a reminder that Selling Sexy is available wherever books and audiobooks are sold. For more information, follow the link in the show notes. And I'll see you tomorrow. Fashion People is a presentation of Odyssey in partnership with Puck, hosted by Lauren Sherman. That's me. Our executive producers are John Kelly, co-founder of Puck, Ben Landy, executive editor of Puck, Gavi Grossman, director of editorial operations at Puck, and Bob Tabador, executive producer at Odyssey. Edited, mixed, and mastered by Molly Nugent. Special thanks to the team at Odyssey, including J.D.

19:30Crowley, Jenna Weiss-Berman, Maddie Sprung-Kaiser, Josephina Francis, Hilary Schupf, and Kurt Courtney.