Victoria’s Secret, uncovered: the troubling reality behind the sex-kitten fantasy

telegraph.co.uk:

Victoria’s Secret set out to make fantasy flesh. At its height in the Noughties, it was the biggest lingerie brand in America: tens of millions tuned in to watch its annual orgiastic catwalk-cum-concert, where Kanye West or Taylor Swift or Destiny’s Child would perform over the click of supermodels’ stilettoes. “Angels” from Tyra Banks to Heidi Klum would glide down the runway, women imagining the kind of femme fatale they too could be if they wore its iconic “fantasy bra”; men imagining, well, best not to think about it.As is the way of these things – not least where swathes of near-naked women are involved – darker goings-on at the multibillion-dollar behemoth were afoot.

A new three-part series, Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons, unpicks how sex, money and gross misconduct turned a household name into a dirty word.

Ex-Angels, former employees and others cast adrift by the megabrand’s mishandlings describe it as a “cult”, where powerful people “allowed a lot of bad things to happen.”Not that it seemed to matter back then, as owner Leslie Wexner continued banking his billions.

He was accused of making "demeaning" comments about women on a number of occasions, and failing to take Ed Razek, CEO of Victoria's Secret's parent company, to task over allegations that he had tried to kiss models, and touched one's crotch ahead of the 2018 show. (Razek denied the claims; a spokesperson for L Brands, the parent company, said they were "fully committed to continuous improvement and complete accountability.")As veteran style writer Michael Gross tells the cameras, “Fashion is essentially amoral; it doesn’t care about good or bad.