Who Is Victoria And What Is Her Secret?

            If someone asked me a month ago if I had a sheltered childhood, my answer would have been a “no”. But within the last month, I’ve been realizing that I did have a somewhat sheltered childhood. I wasn’t allowed to watch a variety of TV shows (like Hey Arnold, Dragon Tales, Rugrats, Rocket Power, among several others) and movies (for example, all of the Harry Potter series), or listen to certain radio stations, simply because my parents said I couldn’t. I was a fairly obedient child, so I rarely ever questioned my parents’ judgment. If they said I couldn’t do something, I just said “okay” and went along on my merry way.

When I got older and attended junior high at a large public school, I was exposed to a lot of things I had never heard of before – one of them being Victoria’s Secret. There are a lot of stories I could tell about how gullible and naïve I was, and still am, but for now I’ll focus on just one. All my friends shopped at Victoria’s Secret and told me how awesome the store was, but they just laughed when I asked, “Who is Victoria and what is her secret?” My parents had avoided the store in our local mall (looking back now, I’d say they did it rather purposefully) so before junior high I had only heard legend-like stories about this mysterious Victoria and her secret. I was curious to see what kind of store it was, so the next time I went to the mall with my friends I made a point to stop by the store. I was totally shocked by what I found inside. I had no idea what to make of half of the items for sale. I didn’t know that such contraptions even existed! Because of my first, rather traumatic, experience in Victoria’s Secret, I made a point not to even look inside the store when I walked by on my way to the food court. Now that I've matured, I have realized that a lot of things can be learned about our culture through Victoria's Secret.

The models that Victoria’s Secret uses seem to all have the “perfect”, toned, tan body (http://www.victoriassecret.com/). Life-size posters of the models, wearing only their scanty underwear and bras, plaster the windows of the store in malls all across America. The company is using the sex appeal of these women models to sell to both women and men with women in their life (whether a wife or a girlfriend). The book Brandwashed by Martin Lindstrom talks about companies using attractive male models to sell to men, and I believe Victoria’s Secret is doing the same but using women models to sell to women. Many women in our society today might look at one of the posters in the window of the store and say to themself, “If I buy lingerie from Victoria’s Secret, I’ll look just as sexy as that model.” The men might see them and think, “If I buy that bra for my wife/girlfriend, then she’ll be just as hot as that model is.” And this marketing scheme actually seems to be working (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria%27s_Secret). The Wikipedia article says that “Victoria's Secret is the largest American retailer of lingerie with over 1,000 Victoria's Secret stores in the U.S., annually mailing out 375 million catalogues and with sales in 2006 of over $5 billion with an operating income of $1 billion” and that “The first year of business Victoria's Secret made $500,000.”

In 1995 the company started hosting an annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in order to promote their brand. Writer Robin Givhan says in her online article ("The Evolution Of The Bra, From Mad Men's Day To Our Own") that "[Victoria's Secret]'s first fashion show is a combination of self-assured strutting for women and voyeuristic pleasures for men - and lingerie becomes mainstream entertainment." (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/03/08/the-evolution-of-the-bra-from-mad-men-s-day-to-our-own.html). The idea of voyeuristic (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/voyeuristic?s=t) pleasure that men get from watching the Fashion Show models "self-assuredly strut" goes directly against what the Bible says in Proverbs 6:25 - "Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes."

Victoria's Secret has evolved over the years, along with our culture. The company is using more and more sex appeal to sell to both men and women. But what I want to know is, how far will Victoria go to make her "secret" even more well-known?