Victoria’s Secret models are confronting it with the reality of sexual misconduct – let’s hope we’re a step closer to the company’s demise

It hasn’t been a great year for Victoria’s Secret. And it’s only getting worse.

More than 100 models have signed a petition to chief executive John Mehas to promise to protect them from sexual misconduct. And this is only the latest blow to land on a brand that has been flailing about, trying to find its place in a world that is moving on.

Led by non-profit organisation Model Alliance, the letter references allegations levelled at photographers who they claim “leveraged their working relationships with Victoria’s Secret to lure and abuse vulnerable girls”. It is a new front in a story that has drawn in a series of photographers and has become a deep stain on the fashion industry.

Models who have co-signed the letter to Victoria’s Secret include Christy Turlington, Edie Campbell and Iskra Lawrence. It comes on the back of the Time’s Up initiative designed to tackle sexual harassment in Hollywood and beyond.

Leslie H Wexner, who owns the American lingerie brand’s parent company, L Brands, has faced criticism for his long and close relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who reportedly approached models claiming to be a Victoria’s Secret scout. Photographers connected to the brand have also been accused of sexual misconduct.

Could this be the thread that threatens to unravel the whole sorry ensemble? In truth the company has been looking jaded all year.

First, the underwear brand was slammed for saying transgender models weren’t welcome, shortly after which the brand’s CEO, Jan Singer, left the company. The firms’ annual catwalk show was dropped from network television, and the latest suggestion is that it might be cancelled altogether. This week, the brand’s chief marketing officer Ed Razek – the man behind the fashion show, and those anti-trans comments – resigned after 36 years at the company.

Launched in 1977 by couple Roy and Gaye Raymond, Victoria’s Secret was created to make lingerie shopping more comfortable for men seeking to buy saucy gifts for their wives (note, it was created with men, not women, in mind). It was named after Queen Victoria, whom the couple associated with the utmost refinement.

Frankly, it’s difficult to imagine Victoria wearing a pink satin push-up underneath her mourning dress, and it’s even more the case today when the brand is as far from refinement as any could be – associated more with bleak airport terminal stalls, nauseatingly sweet perfume and tacky striped bags, than any sort of sophistication.

The only thing that ever lent any sort of kudos to the brand were the big-name models who walked the plank for womankind at the annual catwalk show. Now it appears they’re ready to challenge the machine that put them there.

That annual display of semi-nude “angels” (as they are called) dripping with diamonds, feathered wings and sequins, walking in impossibly vertiginous stilettos, push-up bras and thongs was only marginally elevated above a demeaning Las Vegas strip show by the likes of Karlie Kloss, Kendall Jenner, Gigi and Bella Hadid and Winnie Harlow.

But, when even those being paid a fortune to set womankind back decades are no longer interested, the death knell has surely been sounded. Kloss told Vogue last month that she didn’t think the brand was “truly reflective” of who she was and the “kind of message I want to send to young women around the world about what it means to be beautiful”. She had spent two years with the brand.

Viewing figures for the once must-see show have waned, too. It pulled in 9.7 million in 2013, 2017 saw this figure drop to 5 million and last year, just 3.3 million tuned in. Sales are also in decline.

As it sought to defuse the transgender row, VS brought in Brazilian Valentina Sampaio as the latest hire for the athletic line, VS Pink. Posting about the news on Instagram, Sampaio told her followers to “never stop dreaming”.

Well that’s nice then, but her hire felt like a desperate shot in the dark at a time when the tide seems to be quickly turning against the brand.

Victoria’s Secret isn’t the first desperate relic of the patriarchy clumsily trying to align itself with modern values though transgender virtue signalling. In December last year, Miss Universe’s attempt to bait headlines to their favour by becoming the first ever pageant to include a transgender contestant was as transparent as the flimsy fabric on the contestant’s mesh bikinis.

It’s desperately shameful that people who have gone through the trauma of sex reassignment surgery should now be expected to validate themselves by whether or not they can be degraded as much as cis women are expected to be. It is as if the ultimate marker of victory and acceptance is seeing yourself defined and celebrated based on how malnutrition and protein shakes have sculpted your body.

At the heart of VS’s difficulties is the simple truth that women are proving that they’re no longer content to buy into a brand whose product serves as a constant reminder to them that they don’t look like the model on the box. As the shadow of sexual harassment looms over it, women certainly won’t want to spend their money with a company that is accused of failing to protect their human rights.

The VS models have previously claimed it makes them feel empowered to walk down a catwalk in front of ogling men, but it achieves the opposite for every single woman watching or who spot the pictures and clips as they go about their day in the weeks that follow: it fuels a culture that burdens us with a beauty standard that despises us, that wants to see us imprisoned by their own insecurities.

So, what will it be? Will VS respond to this call to arms from the modelling world? If this truly is the downfall for Victoria’s Secret, excuse me if I don’t shed a tear – and instead look forward to the female-helmed brands that actually support the women they profess to serve, taking its sorry place.