Book Bites: Selling Sexy

Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon by Lauren Sherman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Selling Sexy is an unphotoshopped picture of mall-shopping stalwart, Victoria's Secret, warts and all. The short of it is that Les Wexner's timing in buying the brand from Gay and Tom Raymond was extremely, extremely lucky: VS grew as malls expanded, as consumer habits shifted toward single-item stores, as vertical integration in fashion retailing made fast fashion possible. Surfing the wave of consumerism and rampant misogyny in the 90's and 00's to billion-dollar valuation, Wexner's boys-club C-suite, high on their own importance, refused to see their objectification and womanizing as a downside, refused to see the looming importance of Social Media and eCommerce, thus dooming themselves. A later chapter on Pedophile to the Rich and Famous, Jeffrey Epstein, almost becomes totemic for the company at-large; a failure of empathy borne of wealth, privilege and proximity to power. Sherman and Fernandez, much like the Jax song, reveal Victoria's real Secret: she's an old man who lives in Ohio, cashing in on womens' body insecurities with cheaply-made bras and panties.

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