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Old School v. New School: Victoria’s Secret and Savage X Fenty
Words Erika Yomi
Savage X Fenty seems to be the fastest growing lingerie brand with it valuing $1 billion dollars in a matter of 3 years that the brand has been open. But this baby business is anything but small as they’re competing with industry giants Victoria’s Secret. But I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind is how did a fairly new business become the industry leaders biggest rivals in what seems overnight?
Emerging from an uncomfortable trip to buying lingerie from his wife. Roy Raymond wanted an alternative, to create a safe haven for men to be able to buy lingerie without feeling the judgement. Eight long years later and after much research and fine tuning, him and his wife opened the first Victoria Secret store was birthed in California 1977. It was later sold to Wexner in 1982, which he then later up scaled it to a billion dollar business in a matter of a few years becoming the largest lingerie retailer in America at the time.
Victoria’s Secret USP at the time was their annual runway shows titled ‘Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show’. With their models labelled the Victoria’s Secret Angels, the fashion show who got the whole world talking. They featured the worlds most beautiful models from Miranda Kerr, Bella Hadid, Tyra Banks to name a few. These fashion show featured the most petite women modelling their line of clothes. The popular fashion brand soon rapidly declined in 2016 with market share dropping from 33 percent to 24 percent, the closure of 53 stores and many of the companies heads following major accusations over the unethical leadership and the fact that people switched over to activewear.
Then emerged the young budding, lingerie line Savage x Fenty founded by singer, songwriter Rhianna. Launched in 2018, as an online only store. The brand has received a lot of traction from the start, starting from the pop up shop selling out in the first two days that the store was open and within that same month the entire collection was sold out. The brands use of influencer marketing has taken social media by storm with accumulating 4.7 million followers on their instagram account which resulted in which revenue growth of more than 200% last year. But the question still remains what how did they grow to dominate the lingerie industry in less than a decade.
The line was made to represent the everyday person, the people that look like you and me. The woman that isn’t the size 4 and doesn’t look perfect 24/7. For years women have almost felt oppressed with having certain representations that that have to look perfect and it creates a unhealthy perception of the average women.
Savage x Fenty has taken the internet by storm with their campaigns of the everyday woman, that look just like me. Something I didn’t see growing up, I’ve never seen a young black girl with curves embracing the way she looks and promoting, when I was younger if you didn’t look like Pamela Anderson you just wasn’t that girl. That it’s not about having the clearest skin that you would see on billboards as seen by model, Awen Mayen Chuol, a black dark skin model with face scars. You actually feel like I don’t need to try hard to fit in the with group that’s feels elite, you can actually join the community that has made being a misfit feel good! That seemed like the new cool club, the hype of owning a matching underwear set from Victoria’s Secret that would have completed my teenage dream has not died down for my generation and I at least. It’s now about the new age women, backing a female owned business, someone that you know is going through similar struggles, someone that actually cares about the quality and someone can actually relate to.
In my opinion, Victoria’s Secret should be more inclusive and less objectifying and be more empowering. We see with Rihanna’s runway show that it focuses more on the art and the flamboyancy of the show rather than how pretty the girls look prancing up and down. They should not be closing their stores down as that is a part of the Victoria’s Secret experience, the coming out the of the store with the pink striped bag with the tissue paper sticking out the top of it. They need to tune into influencer marketing and reach out to the general public as that’s is the way social media and the world are moving. If you want to target the young people go to where it matters.
Savage x Fenty is taking the world by storm, and it only looks like the only way is up as Rhianna is set to open 5 brick and mortar stores this year.
However the question remains will the industry leaders Victoria’s Secret hang on to their reign or will they allow room for fresh meat to rise?