After a six-year break from the fashion world to work on its brand image, it looks like Victoria’s Secret couldn’t get the hint—at least, not completely. The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show on Oct. 15 has only appeared to exacerbate concerns about the future of plus-sized models in the fashion industry.
Out of the 25 models that walked the catwalk, only five of them were plus-sized. It seems that Victoria’s Secret begrudgingly threw in several size-inclusive models to appease the masses. But according to multiple news outlets, including Allure and Salon, it was—understandably so—not enough.
Victoria’s Secret’s body exclusivity is nothing new. In fact, it has a long history of body discrimination that isn’t completely out of the picture given how this year’s fashion show turned out.
In 2014, the beauty retailer came out with a “Perfect Body” campaign which featured ten models with one glaring common denominator: they were all thin. As if to emphasize this discrimination, the ad message stated, “The Perfect Body.” Social media was up in arms and it even sparked a Change.org petition, urging the brand to modify the slogan. Whether or not the firm changed the message—which was altered to, “A Body for Every Body,”—in response to the petition remained unclear, but the petitioners didn’t feel that was enough.
Victoria’s Secret’s former Chief Marketing Officer Edward Razek has also made some controversial comments in the past when asked about making the runway more inclusive.
“We market to who we sell to, and we don’t market to the whole world,” Razek said. “We attempted to do a television special for plus-sizes [in 2000]. No one had any interest in it, still don’t.”
Ashley Graham, who made her debut in this year’s show, called out the fashion industry’s underrepresentation of plus-sized models back in a 2016 interview with Just N Life.
“I really believe women of all shapes, sizes, ages, and ethnicities should really be accepting who they are and that more fashion needs to represent them,” she said.
Graham has made efforts to bring inclusivity to the fashion industry herself by collaborating with Knix to sell lingerie for all shapes and sizes, but expanding it to new heights.
“We need to see all kinds of beauty on the covers of magazines, on the runways, in beauty campaigns and I really want my hips and my triple Ds to be changing those aspects of fashion,” she said.
Victoria’s Secret has suggested that the fashion world is still largely stuck in the past, a move that leaves the future of the inclusion of plus-sized models in question.
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