Jan Singer, the chief executive of lingerie, resigned from the brand a week after chief marketing officer Ed Razek made a controversial statement on transgender and super-large models.
Hollywood reports confirm that Victoria Ss Secret’s underwear CEO Jan Singer is resigning. The news was released a week after the brand’s chief marketing officer Ed Razek published a statement about the problem of denaturation and oversize.
Singer joined the L Brands Inc. division in September 2016 after serving as the head of Spanx. Singer tried to compete for the growing underwear business by adopting fast-fashioned panties models, which are cheaper and more new. Despite her efforts, Victoria’s secrets have faced commercial struggles in recent years, with same-store sales falling by 5% in 2018.
At the same time as the rise of lingerie brands, celebrate large and gender-qualified customers – such as Third Love and Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty series – Victoria’s secrets are increasingly criticized for their lack of inclusiveness. The brand’s chief record officer, Ed Razek, recently explained in an interview with Vogue why he did not perform trans or large-size models in Victoria’s secret fashion show. (The annual landscape of last week was taken in 2018 iterations and will be aired on December 2nd.)
According to Razek – his response includes the use of outdated and offensive words “transgender” – trans and large women do not represent the “fantasy” that Victoria’s secret attempts to sell.
“Don’t you have transgender people on the show? No, I don’t think we should do this. Well, why not? Because the show is fantasy,” he said. “This is a 42-minute entertainment special show. That’s it.”
Razek added: “If you ask if we have considered placing a transgender model in the show, or considering adding a plus size model to the show, we have it. We invented an oversize in our sister. Model show Lane Bryant. Lane Bryant still sells large size underwear, but it sells in a specific range, just like every professional retailer in the world sells a variety of clothing. Like us. We market the products we sell. We don’t do what we try to do for the whole world. We try to make a TV special for the oversized size of 2000. No one has any interest in it, but it still doesn’t.”
Razek later apologized for his comments in a statement issued in Victoria’s secret Twitter account. “The statement about adding a transgender model to Victoria’s secret fashion show is not sensitive,” he said to some extent, not acknowledging his views on the XL model.
Despite Razek’s apology, notable LGBTQ and plus size models – including Gigi Gorgeous, Carmen Carrera and Tess Holliday, etc. – continue to publicly condemn Victoria’s secrets.
On Monday morning, online audience Gorgeous shared a YouTube video entitled “The Secret of Shame Victoria”, which describes what the brand meant to her in the early days of her first transition to underwear. “I just want to say this is the last time I wore Victoria’s secret bra,” she said in a video after picking up the pink bra. “They must have lost a customer in me.”