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Victoria's Secret Exec Accused of Sexually Harassing Employees and Models: Report


A new New York Times report has exposed the alleged “culture of misogyny inside Victoria’s Secret.” The report, which was published on February 1, features interviews with over 30 current and former executives, employees, and models who claim the brand has a history of misogyny, bullying, and sexual harassment.

Most allegations revolved around Ed Razek, former president and chief marketing officer, who stepped down from his position in August 2019 after making controversial comments about hiring transgender or curvy models for the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

In one of the alleged incidents, Razek made lewd comments about Bella Hadid before the 2018 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show as she was getting measured for underwear. According to newspaper, he was sitting on a couch in the same room and allegedly said “forget the panties” before commenting that she should walk “down the runway with those perfect” breasts.

The allegations come just months after the 23-year-old supermodel admitted that she had never felt comfortable on the runway until walking in Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty show.

Razek allegedly made lewd comments about Bella Hadid during a fitting for the 2018 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. 

Taylor Hill / Getty Images

“That was the first time on a runway that I felt really sexy. Because when I first did Fenty, I was doing other lingerie shows and I never felt powerful on a runway, like, in my underwear,” Hadid said.

Model Andi Muise, who had participated in the VS fashion show for two consecutive years, said she repeatedly turned down Razek’s advances in 2007 and then was not cast in the next year’s show.

The Times also alleges Razek touched another model’s privates over her underwear, among several other allegations, including harassing women with intimate emails, asking them to sit on his lap, and trying to kiss them.

Ed Razek

Ed Razek

Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Victoria’s Secret

The report further alleges that L Brands founder and owner Leslie Wexner was aware of Razek’s behavior, but that he was also known to allegedly abuse his power and use demeaning language toward women.

“What was most alarming to me, as someone who was always raised as an independent woman, was just how ingrained this behavior was,” a former public relations employee said to the Times. “This abuse was just laughed off and accepted as normal. It was almost like brainwashing. And anyone who tried to do anything about it wasn’t just ignored. They were punished.”

Razek has since denied the allegations to the Times, insisting they are “categorically untrue, misconstrued or taken out of context,” adding that he’s been “fortunate to work with countless, world-class models and gifted professionals and take great pride in the mutual respect we have for each other.”

Victoria’s Secret has not addressed the accusations.



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Bella Hadid Says Victoria's Secret Never Made Her Feel ‘Powerful’


It’s not all that rare to see Bella Hadid, one of the highest paid models of her generation, in lingerie. But at the Vogue Fashion Festival in Paris on Friday, she admitted that she never felt comfortable until walking in Rihanna’s epic Savage x Fenty show this September. “That was the first time on a runway that I felt really sexy. Because when I first did Fenty, I was doing other lingerie shows and I never felt powerful on a runway, like, in my underwear,” she said per WWD.

Hadid, who has walked the runway for Victoria’s Secret three times, shared that she’s struggled with mental health issues for years. “For a while I just didn’t want to talk about it, and I’ve gone through a lot in the past few years with my health,” she said. “I feel guilty for being able to live this incredible life, have the opportunities that I do, but somehow still be depressed. It doesn’t make sense.”

Her point is powerful and important: Mental health issues like depression and anxiety don’t discriminate. Success doesn’t make you immune.

“I would cry every single morning, I would cry during my lunch breaks, I would cry before I slept. I was very emotionally unstable for a while when I was working 14-hour days for four months straight as an 18-year-old,” she said. “I think I just wanted to breathe a little bit. And so it kind of put me in a spiral.”

Last month, in honor of World Mental Health Day, Hadid alluded to struggling with her mental health to her followers on Instagram. “Being kind and protective to yourself and your energy is something I’ve learned to be helpful. When the world feels like it is collapsing around you, you are allowed to ask for help,” she wrote. “You do not have to deal w/ your mental state alone.”

At the panel on Friday, the 23-year-old model shared that she’s in a better place—and that she wants to help destigmatize mental health issues. “I feel like I would be doing a disservice to myself if I didn’t speak about something such as mental health, because that’s pretty much what I’ve been going through for the past five years very intensely,” she said. “Now we’re here and we’re good, but it took a while.”



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Victoria's Secret Will Feature Its First Size-14 Model in New Collab With Bluebella


On Friday, October 4, Victoria’s Secret launched a partnership with London-based lingerie company Bluebella—and for the first time in VS history, the brand will feature a size-14 woman in its campaign. The model, Ali Tate Cutler, says she hopes her involvement will pave the way for other plus-sized models in the future.

Bluebella is also known for its campaigns that feature and celebrate diversity in an effort to promote inclusivity.

The new collab with VS also comes after transgender model Munroe Bergdorf starred in Bluebella’s 2019 lingerie campaign, Love Yourself, before publicly criticizing Victoria’s Secret for its refusal to use trans models on the runway.

You might recall that in 2018, during an interview with Vogue, Ed Razek, former chief marketing officer of Victoria’s Secret parent company L Brands, made controversial comments regarding transgender and plus-size models. At the time, he said didn’t think the annual fashion shows should feature “transsexuals” because “the show is a fantasy.”

The company has since made attempts to re-brand itself given the public’s demand for better representation.

It seems they may have found that in Cutler, who told E! how “surreal” it is to represent women who want to wear beautiful lingerie every day.

“I never expected that I was going to see an image of myself on the wall next to these top supermodels that I have been looking up to since I was a little girl,” she told the outlet. “It feels amazing, I feel on top of the world.”

“I feel like they are headed in the right direction and they are listening to their audience who have requested to see more women of diverse shapes and sizes,” she continued. “I think if they continue to head in that direction they will be on to a jackpot because that is reflective of what the average woman is in America.”



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Victoria's Secret Might Be Getting a Brand-New Look—But Is It Enough?


As Fashion Week unfolded in New York—and Rihanna hosted her Savage x Fenty show in Brooklyn—Victoria’s Secret parent company L Brands held its investor meeting in Columbus, Ohio. The consensus around Rihanna’s entry into the lingerie space has widely agreed that the current biggest name in intimates apparel could never. L Brands had an opportunity to prove otherwise.

According to Fortune, at Tuesday’s meeting, Victoria’s Secret Chief Executive Officer John Mehas, who joined the company from Tory Burch last year, expressed confidence that the path forward to success was evolution and putting women at the center of the brand. “We need to be led by her, for her,” he said.

For Mehas, the future of Victoria’s Secret—a brand that hasn’t cast size-inclusive models and whose parent company’s stock fell 28% since beginning of the year—will look different by way of more wireless bras, a push toward matching bra and underwear sets, a new approach to sale associate training, CNBC reports. “[Customers have] been very vocal about what [they’d] like to see from us in terms of inclusivity, #MeToo, rethinking the fashion show,” Mehas said. “We’re essentially in agreement at this.”

At the meeting, sister brand VS Pink revealed images of its new direction, as well—one aimed to win back it’s Gen Z market. As Wall Street Journal reporter Khadeeja Safdar shared on Twitter, its creative team teased an upcoming campaign that featured a group of models of different sizes wearing brightly-colored clothing. The image suggested a more body-positive approach to product and advertising, but any information about potential size expansion has yet to be confirmed.

Pink’s CEO Amy Hauk (who, like Mehas, assumed the position last year) promised at the meeting that the brand is “committed to learning” and shifting its focus to the “power of femininity,” according to Fortune. But as the main Victoria’s Secret line, a clear vision has not yet been shared. “Amy and the team are a little further ahead than we are,” he said. Hauk was also the only female executive to present on stage at the investor meeting.

These investor meetings come a little over a month since L Brand’s former chief marketing officer Ed Razek left his post. A 36-year Victoria’s Secret vet, he was at the helm throughout the time when the brand’s identity was made iconic, i.e. the era of the VS Angel. Thin, cis-gender models in heavily-padded bras, oozing sex appeal that felt intended for the male gaze. A “fantasy” as Razek would call it, but one that excluded anyone who didn’t fit those parameters—something the former executive confirmed in an interview with Vogue last year.





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Valentina Sampaio Is Reportedly Victoria's Secret's First Openly Transgender Model


Valentina Sampaio is making history once again: She’s reportedly the first openly transgender model to work with Victoria’s Secret. Sampaio broke the news herself on Instagram on Friday (July 2) by posting a pic of herself in a fluffy bathrobe: “Backstage click @vspink ??,” she captioned the photo, adding a string of hashtags: “#bastidores #new #vspink #campaign #representatividade #diversity #beauty #selfie #model #life #fashion #usa #vstorm #valentinasampaio #bomdia.” According to a statement from the company, the Brazilian model and actress is featured in the the back-to-campus campaign for Victoria’s Secret PINK.

Sampaio’s post received a ton of support, including congrats from Victoria’s Secret Angel (and fellow Brazilian) Lais Ribeiro, who posted how happy she was about the news on Twitter, and Laverne Cox, who wrote “Wow finally!” in the comments of Sampaio’s Instagram.

Sampaio posted a video of herself to Instagram as well, seeming to reference her milestone in the caption—and the PINK campaign again in the hashtags. “Never stop dreaming genteee ???,” she wrote. “#staytuned #bastidores #new #vspink #campaign #representatividade #diversity #beauty #selfie #life #fashion #usa #vstorm #valentinasampaio ?✌?”

Victoria’s Secret came under fire last year for comments made by its chief marketing officer, Ed Razek, during an interview with Vogue. When he was asked about why the company didn’t include transgender or plus-size models in its shows, he responded that he didn’t believe they should be featured, calling the show a “fantasy.”

Trans models like Carmen Carrera and Leyna Bloom have publicly expressed their desire to walk for Victoria’s Secret. In 2013, Carrera was the subject of a Change.org petition, which received more than 35,000 signatures, asking the company to make her the brand’s first transgender model. Last April, Bloom launched a Twitter campaign to be the first trans woman of color to walk the show’s runway.

Sampaio herself is no stranger to advocating for representation. She was also the first trans model on any Vogue cover, appearing on the March 2017 cover of Vogue Paris (she also appeared on the covers of Vogue Brazil and Vogue Germany later that year). “Her accomplishment comes despite recent setbacks for the LGBT community in Brazil—including a spike in hate crimes and killings of LGBT people,” Buzzfeed wrote in a profile of her in June 2017. “Though the reality for most trans women in Brazil differs sharply from Sampaio’s, her ascent to fashion’s most coveted spot is seen both as a milestone and the mark of a new normal for transgender people in her industry.”





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Why Is this Victoria's Secret Model Exercising at In-N-Out Burger?


Victoria’s Secret model Kelly Gale is catching some heat online for an Instagram video she posted of herself at In-N-Out Burger.

Gale, her Victoria’s Secret–worthy abs, and her friends were recently at an In-N-Out Burger, where they were very definitely not eating the fast food. “We’re at…In-N-Out? So I guess I’m having my pear,” Gale says, in her Instagram Story obtained by E! News.

If not indulging in an order of fries, what was the model doing there, you ask? Apparently, working out. In a later slide, Gale showed off her workout equipment—yes, while still at In-N-Out—and then fully begins exercising as restaurant patrons eat inside. “Who else works out at an In-N-Out?” she wrote in one caption. “Not gonna pretend that I eat here guys ’cause I don’t.”

Watch the full, baffling, video for yourself, below:

Naturally, this is causing quite a stir online, with many people accusing Gale of fat shaming people who eat at In-N-Out Burger.

Others, however, are coming to her defense.

But, honestly, I’m just confused more than anything. Why was Gale at this In-N-Out Burger to begin with? Is she doing an exercise tour of fast-food restaurants? Is Pilates at Pizza Hut next on her list? The concept of going to a restaurant, not eating the food, and then exercising at said restaurant is just baffling. You wouldn’t show up to an Applebee’s and play hide-and-go-seek! You’d eat their iconic quesadilla burger and revel in a decision well made.

The fat-shaming implications here do have some merit. It’s not unreasonable to think people would feel bad eating at a fast-food restaurant as a literal Victoria’s Secret model does lunges in the parking lot. Contrary to what some people may think, it’s entirely possible to live a healthy lifestyle and eat fast food every now and then. In fact, I encourage it! Life without french fries is no life worth living.

I do commend Gale for one thing: being up front about her diet as opposed to saying she eats pizza and cheeseburgers all the time. So many models do that in attempt to be “relatable,” and it just ends up making us feel crappy about ourselves. Achieving the body of a Victoria’s Secret Angel is damn near impossible. It requires very sad lifestyle choices—like, as Gale proves here, eating pears at In-N-Out Burger.

Related Stories:

Body-Positive Influencers Respond to the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show With Their Own Lingerie Photos

Every Victoria’s Secret Angel Who Has Worn the Fantasy Bra



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