A Victoria’s Secret Documentary Is Strutting Towards TV Screens

Before Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty made Victoria’s Secret feel painfully out-of-touch, the lingerie brand’s annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show functioned as a sort of patriarchy-backed Olympics for the modelling world. Then came the cancellation of its televised runway event in 2019, and reports of a deeply misogynistic workplace culture. (A spokesperson for Victoria’s Secret later issued a statement, noting that the company is “intensely focused” on compliance practices and expressing “regret” about any instances in which it “did not achieve this objective”.) At the beginning of 2020, parent company L Brand announced a deal giving private equity firm Sycamore Partners a 55 per cent stake in the brand – an agreement which subsequently fell through.

Now, journalist and filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer is working on a three-part documentary series, The Rise And Fall Of Victoria’s Secret, due out on Hulu at the beginning of 2022. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tyrnauer will “go behind the scenes of the lingerie brand, using first-hand accounts and deep investigative research to reveal the inner workings of Victoria’s Secret the brand and the cultural institution”.

Famously, entrepreneur Roy Raymond founded Victoria’s Secret in 1977 in Palo Alto, California, after struggling to find lingerie for his wife. In spite of his initial success, Victoria’s Secret struggled financially, until Leslie Wexner, a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein, purchased the company in 1982. He launched the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in 1995, and released a commercial during the 1999 Super Bowl watched by more than a billion people in 100 countries. Wexner stepped down as CEO in 2020, having previously stated that he felt “embarrassed” at being “taken advantage of” by Epstein and “enormous regret for the advantage that was taken of so many young women”. He remains on the board of L Brand as chairman emeritus.