[imagesource: Hulu]

At its peak, Victoria’s Secret was the biggest name in lingerie.

How many other underwear brands had a catwalk event where the likes of Kanye West and Taylor Swift performed, with millions watching recordings?

The 2018 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show (the last of its kind) has more than 30 million views on YouTube, and highlights from the 2013 show have in excess of 17 million views.

However, as we have come to learn over the past few years, there was plenty going on behind the scenes that showed the brand was a “cult” where powerful people “allowed a lot of bad things to happen”.

That’s according to one former model who appears in the three-part series, Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons, which is currently airing on Hulu.

We have covered some of the revelations surrounding former CEO Les Wexner before but the trailer below was not yet released:

That’s right – Epstein had power of attorney that “gave him access to vast amounts of Wexner’s wealth” and was allowed to “hire people, sign checks, buy and sell properties and borrow money” on Wexner’s behalf.

Epstein once posed as a talent scout for Victoria’s Secret, when he lured model Alicia Arden to his hotel room for an “audition” in 1997 and then groped her.

The documentary’s director, Matt Tyrnauer, says he first became aware of pushback against the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show via social media. Here’s The Telegraph:

…suddenly, the models previously clamouring at the brand’s barely-clad teat began lambasting it. Allegations of misogyny and sexual misconduct swirled. As he dug in further, Tyrnauer was shocked at how closely its offerings resembled “softcore porn”, unable to understand how “something so retrograde and backward worked at all… clearly there was a market for this kind of unreconstructed, retrograde exploitation of sexuality to sell things.”

Cash that Epstein procured from Wexner was used to help fund his lifestyle. This included his infamous New York townhouse and the ‘Lolita Express‘, the private jet he used to traffic girls and women.

Tyrnauer says that “vast numbers” of Non-Disclosure Agreements were signed by people who operated in the upper corridors of the company. This made investigating what really went on hard work and has also led to a dearth of prosecutions.

No heads have rolled and Wexner is still the richest man in Ohio, but no longer the CEO. Meanwhile, the culture at the company has been fully exposed, reports POPSUGAR:

Some employees said there were often jokes about harassment thrown around at meetings that were met with nervous laughter or shrugged off entirely because of how many allegations they saw daily.

Whether any of them truly knew about Epstein’s involvement at the time or not, allowing that culture to be swept under the rug was a precursor for the brand’s impending bigger problems.

Since 2018, Victoria’s Secret has undergone a massive shift in how it’s marketed and aimed to increase diversity in its models.

The day the series dropped on Hulu, the brand acknowledged what had come before:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Victoria’s Secret (@victoriassecret)

It may never win back some fans. Many of that post’s top-ranked comments are begging for the Fashion Show to return.

At least it’s rid itself of Wexner but more remains to be done.

[sources:telegraph&popsugar]