Victoria’s Secret: Why Brand Relevance Matters When Consumers Change

For years, Victoria’s Secret was more than a lingerie brand. It created a distinctive world of glamour, aspiration and fantasy, built around its Angels, elaborate fashion shows and a very specific idea of beauty. That identity helped make the brand one of the most recognisable names in fashion retail. But consumer expectations changed, and Brand Relevance became harder to maintain when the image that once defined the brand began to feel increasingly out of step with its audience.

The challenge Victoria’s Secret faced was not a lack of awareness. Almost everyone knew the brand. The bigger question was whether consumers still saw themselves in it. As attitudes towards beauty, representation, comfort and inclusivity evolved, competitors such as Aerie and other newer lingerie brands began offering a different proposition. Victoria’s Secret had to decide whether to defend its established identity, change it, or find a way to evolve without losing what made it distinctive.

Brand Relevance: The Challenge of Evolving Without Losing Your Identity

Victoria’s Secret’s response was significant. In 2021, the company retired its Angels and introduced the VS Collective, featuring women such as Megan Rapinoe, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Eileen Gu and Paloma Elsesser. The intention was to move away from the traditional image of the brand and present a broader, more contemporary definition of beauty and empowerment.

There was logic behind the move. Consumers were changing, and the old portrayal of women was increasingly criticised as narrow and unrealistic. However, a rebrand is not simply about changing the people in advertisements or replacing one campaign message with another. It has to feel believable. Forbes contributor Jeetendr Sehdev argued at the time that changing the external message without corresponding organisational and product changes could make the transformation appear calculated rather than authentic.

Interestingly, research published in the Diponegoro International Journal of Business found that Victoria’s Secret’s new brand image positively influenced perceptions of brand trust, prestige and brand love among the respondents studied. At the same time, brand trust by itself did not translate into greater brand loyalty, while prestige and brand love did. The distinction is important: changing perceptions can create interest, but lasting loyalty requires something deeper.

The story also shows why Brand Relevance should not be confused with simply following cultural trends. Victoria’s Secret spent years being associated with a particular kind of fantasy. Moving too far away from that identity risked making the brand less distinctive. A 2025 analysis of the company’s comeback argued that its later return to elements of its original identity, including supermodels and the fashion-show spectacle, reflected an attempt to reconnect with the brand equity it had built over decades.

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This does not mean brands should refuse to change. In fact, Victoria’s Secret’s experience suggests the opposite. The lesson is that evolution works best when it builds on what consumers already recognise and value rather than discarding the entire foundation. The brand’s more recent approach has attempted to combine elements of its familiar glamour with contemporary casting and presentation. Its 2024 fashion show, for example, brought back the runway spectacle while featuring a more diverse group of models.

That balance is where Brand Relevance becomes meaningful. A brand cannot remain frozen in its past simply because its heritage is valuable. At the same time, it cannot become so focused on appearing current that consumers no longer understand what it stands for.

Victoria’s Secret remains a useful case study because its journey is not simply about a failed rebrand or a successful comeback. It is about the difficulty of knowing what should change and what should remain. Consumer preferences will continue to evolve, competitors will keep introducing new ideas, and cultural expectations will shift again. Strong brands need to listen to those changes without becoming unrecognisable in the process.

The bigger lesson for marketers is straightforward: relevance is not about becoming a different brand every time the market changes. It is about understanding what makes the brand matter, identifying what consumers now expect from it, and evolving the two in a credible way. Victoria’s Secret’s history shows that when those elements fall out of alignment, even an iconic brand can lose its place in culture. When they come back together, the brand has a chance to become relevant again without forgetting who it is.