Angel wing is out, diversity is in for Victoria’s Secret. Victoria’s Secret on Thursday (17 June) unrolled its latest rebranding effort to catch up with customer demands and shifting trends.

The rebrand is a stark contrast to what Victoria’s Secret previously advocated. Its sensational annual fashion show will come back in 2022 with a different format and concept. 

Under the new management, the brand forms VS Collective and swaps its models, known as ‘Angels,’ to seven women from different industries known for their achievement. The new ambassadors are footballer and gender equality advocate Megan Rapinoe, skier Eileen Gu, model Paloma Elsesser, actress Priyanka Chopra, transgender model Valentina Sampaio, South Sudanese-Australian model Adut Akech and photographer Amanda de Cadenet. 

“When the world was changing, we were too slow to respond,” said Victoria’s Secret newly-appointed CEO Martin Waters. “We needed to stop being about what men want and to be about what women want.” In 2020, Victoria’s Secret has 16% of market share in the US women’s lingerie market, a steep downfall from 32% in 2015.

The brand in 2019 came under scrutiny due to the ties of Leslie Wexner, the former chairman of its parent company L Brands, with the late convicted sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein. Its former marketing executive Ed Razek also came under fire for ingraining a culture of misogyny, bullying and harassment.

In 2020, L Brands signed a deal with private equity firm Sycamore Partners to sell a majority stake of Victoria’s Secret for $525 million. The deal fell through after the brand started to close down stores and furlough its employees as a result of the pandemic. The company then agreed on a deal to take Victoria’s Secret private and separate Victoria’s Secret from L Brands. Following the deal, Wexner resigned from his dual role at the company.