Return of Victoria’s Secret fashion show after a four-year absence
The brand’s chief financial officer said a “new version of our fashion show” will come later this year.
The formerly legendary Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is returning.
Chief Financial Officer Timothy Johnson stated the brand is looking to revamp the former annual show after a four-year hiatus during the company’s 2022 earnings call on Friday.
He declared, “We’re going to keep pushing into the marketing spend to invest in the business, both at the top-of-funnel and also to support the new version of our fashion show, which is to come later this year.
The brand is “Always innovating and ideating in all spheres of the business to continue to put our customer at the center of everything we do and reinforce our commitment to championing women’s voices and their unique perspectives,” a Victoria’s Secret & Co. spokesperson said on Saturday.
The statement continued, “As we’ve previously shared, our new brand projection and mission will continue to be our guiding principle. This will lead us into new spaces like reclaiming one of our best marketing and entertainment properties to date and turning it on its head to reflect who we are today. We’re excited to share more later this year.”
Due to a number of brand-related controversies, including the late Jeffrey Epstein (Former Corporate CEO Les Wexner’s close ties to the disgraced mogul, who was charged with the sex trafficking of underage girls), declining sales, and body image concerns, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show was canceled in November 2019.
A few months later, in February 2020, the business experienced additional backlash as a result of a New York Times article accusing Edward Razek, the former chief marketing officer of L Brands, the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, of cultivating a “culture of misogyny, bullying, and harassment.”
At the time, Razek denied the allegations in an email sent to the Times, writing, “The accusations in this reporting are categorically untrue, misconstrued or taken out of context. I’ve been fortunate to work with countless, world-class models and gifted professionals and take great pride in the mutual respect we have for each other.”
The former top executive had previously made headlines. Because of his divisive and out-of-date remarks in a Vogue interview the year prior, in which he stated that there was no room for plus-size or transgender models in Victoria’s Secret fashion shows “because the show is a fantasy,” the company announced Razek’s resignation in August 2019. Reactions against the brand followed the statement.