Actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas, football star Megan Rapinoe, and five other women have joined Victoria’s Secret to help the US lingerie brand embrace a more inclusive image. On Thursday, the brand took to Instagram to announce the ‘VS Collective’ which is “designed to shape the future of Victoria’s Secret.”
The brand, which is known for its ‘Angels’ and fashion shows with bikini-clad skinny women, is replacing the Angels with a group of seven accomplished women called the VS Collective, New York Times reported.
The seven women are: champion US soccer player and women’s pay equity advocate Megan Rapinoe, actor-entrepreneur Priyanka Chopra Jonas, LGBTQ+ activist and model Valentina Sampaio, model and South Sudanese refugee Adut Akech, British journalist and equality advocate Amanda de Cadenet, champion Chinese-American freestyle skier Eileen Gu, and body-positivity advocate and model Paloma Elsesser.
On Instagram, the brand wrote, “These extraordinary partners, with their unique backgrounds, interests and passions will collaborate with us to create revolutionary product collections, compelling and inspiring content, new internal associate programs and rally support for causes vital to women.”
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“We needed to stop being about what men want and to be about what women want,” Victoria’s Secret CEO Martin Waters told the New York Times. “At Victoria’s Secret, we are on an incredible journey to become the world’s leading advocate for women,” Waters said in a press release, adding that this is a ‘dramatic shift’ for the brand.
VS also announced a new podcast series and a new fund to boost research into cancers that affect women, especially funding female scientists in the field.
This move comes after the company’s stake in the US women’s undergarment market dipped to 21% in 2020, down from 32% in 2015, the New York Times report added. The fashion show too went off the air after ratings dropped from 10 million in 2010 to 3 million in 2018 after facing severe backlash and criticism for not embracing models of all sizes and backgrounds.