【Economist】 Victoria’s Secret gets ready for a makeover
一年一度的维密秀既是感官盛宴，又是思想盛宴。T台上的维密天使不断冲击着人们的眼球，天使的着装不断挑战者人们的思想。维密秀的性感似乎让人忽略了它的本质——销售内衣。性感和时尚对于维多利亚的秘密是招牌还是累赘？现实中的零售状况又如何？跟随外刊阅读一起体验吧！
Going for bust
Victoria’s Secret gets ready for a makeover
New brands are challenging the market leader’s dominance in underwear
SEX SELLS, and it sells few things better than lingerie. Nowhere is that more evident than the Victoria’s Secret fashion show. Befeathered models, known as “angels”, shimmy down a runway to promote America’s biggest underwear retailer. In 2011 more than 10m people watched it on television. But on December 2nd just 3.3m viewers tuned in (see chart).
Victoria’s Secret has around a tenth of a global lingerie market worth $78bn, according to Euromonitor International, a research firm. It shows all the signs of a tired brand struggling to keep up with customer tastes. In America its market share has plunged from almost 33% two years ago to around 24% today, as social media and e-commerce make it easier for new brands to enter the market. Shares in L Brands, its parent company, were worth $100 three years ago; today they go for $30. Newcomers are disrupting every part of retail, but Victoria’s Secret has made its woes worse.
When Roy Raymond started the firm in 1977, he wanted shops where men could comfortably buy lingerie for their wives and girlfriends. Velvet sofas and silk drapes made them look more like boudoirs than places for women to find supportive undergarments. Leslie Wexner, L Brands’ boss, who bought the firm in 1982, added soft lighting and floral prints to give it more appeal to women, his main customers. Once its chief asset, the brand’s sexiness now looks like a liability. “The way people dress has changed,” says Serena Rees, a stalwart of the industry whose most recent project is a brand of unisex underwear. “People don’t want boobs up under their chin or things pressed or pushed in.”
A slew of competitors, promoting comfort and inclusivity, have taken that message to heart. Aerie, the underwear arm of American Eagle Outfitters, commands just 3% of the American market but has increased its sales by an average of 11% each year since 2016, compared with an average 9% annual decline for Victoria’s Secret over the same period, according to Euromonitor. Thirdlove, an online brand which has sold over 3m bras since its launch in 2013, is growing at around 300% a year.
