What the Victoria’s Secret Models Have Said About Working for VS

Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons is a highly-anticipated documentary explaining the rise and fall of the billion-dollar lingerie model.

The three-part sequence begins with Les Wexner’s buy of the small underwear enterprise from Stanford graduate Roy Raymond in 1982 and charts its world success, the Victoria’s Secret’s style exhibits, and every thing that went on behind the scenes.

Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons additionally examines Wexner’s affiliation with disgraced businessman Jeffery Epstein and the corporate’s downfall in 2018, when allegations of bullying and harassment got here to a head.

In 2020, Victoria’s Secret underwent a rebranding, in addition to growing the variety of feminine board members. The figureheads are now not “Angels”, as a substitute they’re the “VS Collective,” described as a gaggle of “trailblazing,” numerous girls.

With the discharge of Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons on Hulu, Newsweek has taken a glance again at what a few of the VS fashions have stated about working for the model from its heyday, all the best way as much as the ultimate Victoria’s Secret style present in 2018.

What The Victoria’s Secret Models Have Said About Working For VS

Bella Hadid

Bella Hadid walked the Victoria’s Secret runaway from 2016 to 2018.

Speaking to E! News in January 2022, Hadid shared she as soon as felt “unempowered” working with Victoria’s Secret and was trying ahead to working as soon as once more with the model, which has an entire new imaginative and prescient.

She additionally added her determination to rejoin the model was an indication of “personal growth.”

Hadid stated: “Another method that I spotted my progress—which was tremendous vital for me—was with the ability to be in a setting that I as soon as felt unempowered and to now really feel so empowered and so reassured.

“I don’t know if people understand that just as much as you would feel that it’s uncomfortable to be in your underwear shooting a commercial, it is that uncomfortable,” she stated. “So the thing about Victoria’s Secret for me now is that they really, really care about us.”

In a separate interview with Marie Claire, Hadid stated she returned to Victoria’s Secret as a result of issues had “changed so drastically.”

She stated: “There was a type of way that, I think, a lot of us women who used to work with Victoria’s Secret felt. And now, six of the seven [VS] board members are all female. And there’s new photoshoot protocols that we have. So a lot has changed.”

Hadid added: “It took me almost a year and a half to take the meeting with them. Even having that conversation was very complicated for me because of the way that I had felt in the past,” Hadid additionally stated within the interview. “But they came to me with a big presentation about everything that they’ve changed, the way that they’re moving forward with not only body diversity but diversity of women in general.

“Once I sat down with them and had a number of conferences, they have been in a position to show to me that there are actual protocols which might be being put so as and put in line to make the absolute best atmosphere for us.”

Hadid was also one of the models named in a scathing investigation by The New York Times, which found Victoria’s Secret’s former president and chief marketing officer Ed Razek had been accused of sexual harassment and bullying. Razek allegedly made inappropriate comments about Hadid’s body and chest size.

Hadid has never addressed the allegations.

Bridget Malcolm

Australian model Bridget Malcolm referred to Victoria’s Secret as “exploitative” in an interview with 60 Minutes Australia.

During the interview, Malcolm discussed suffering from mental health issues and eating disorders. She also said she had been dumped from the company after she gained “half an inch” on her hips.

Malcolm shared: “My physique was malnourished, my thoughts was malnourished, it was relentless. What that firm represented for me and for therefore many different girls was extraordinarily exploitative at the moment.”

Andi Muise

Modell Andi Muise walked for Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show on 4 events however was by no means invited again after rejecting advances by Razek, in keeping with The New York Times.

Muise acknowledged she acquired sexually express emails from Razek after they went for dinner collectively.

Razek allegedly wrote: “I need someplace sexy to take you!” in a single e mail.

When Muise politely rejected his invitation to his New York dwelling for dinner, she was not picked to stroll within the present once more, the primary time in 4 years.

Selita Ebanks

Speaking to E! News as part of its True Hollywood Story sequence, Ebanks stated the model’s physique normal went “against Mother Nature.”

She stated: “Modeling for Victoria’s Secret, there’s a code you have to follow. There is [an] expectation to maintain the size, and unfortunately, we are going against Mother Nature. It is not something that’s natural, it is not something that should happen. It’s tough.”

Laetitia Casta

Laetitia Casta was one of many first Victoria’s Secret fashions to talk out towards the model.

Casta started working for the model in 1997 however left in 2000.

Speaking to Glamour, Casta stated she was “kicked out” as she was “too much of a rebel.”

Casta shared: “They would ask me which photographers they should work with and I suggested a woman. That was interesting, then they started asking me to be a piece of meat and I said, ‘Bye-bye.’ It became not about beauty, but about sex, it was soft porn. I didn’t want to be just an object, so I went away.

“They requested me to do interviews and I attempted to say what I believed in they usually kicked me out in a method. They stated, ‘You cannot try this.’ I keep in mind being requested what my dream was for Christmas and I’m sorry, I did not need Victoria’s Secret underwear. So they kicked me out. I used to be an excessive amount of of a insurgent.”

Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons is streaming on Hulu now.