INTRODUCTION / HISTORY

History/Founder & CEO

Roy Raymond

A Stanford Graduate named Roy Raymond is the reason for the well-known popular establishment of Victoria’s Secret created in 1977.  Roy Raymond founded Victoria’s Secret in San Francisco from a $40,000 bank loan and borrowed $40,000 from relatives.  The idea and creation of Victoria’s Secret stemmed from Roy Raymond feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed when buying intimate clothing for his wife at department stores he would shop at.  Roy Raymond felt that the department stores had an awkward atmosphere unfit for a man and the clothing on the racks made him blush nervously.  Moreover, he thought the wares of such stores to be either excessively frilly or blandly conservative. Believing that many men and women alike shared in his desire for a middle ground between these two poles, Mr. Raymond decided to embark on the risky venture of creating his own boutiques.  Opening the doors of the first Victoria's Secret decorated to resemble a popularized Victorian bedroom, the premiere outlet was furnished with opulent Oriental rugs and period vanities whose drawers housed fittingly plush bras and panties made by upscale designers such as Vanity Fair and Warner's. Although subsequent stores were less customized than Mr. Raymond's prototype, this balance of seduction and "classy" charm continued to rule the sensibilities of Victoria's Secret.  Men gladly accompanied their wives or lovers to Victoria's Secret, while women enjoyed finding a myriad of products in every size and shape imaginable.

Victoria’s Secret first year of business had amassed sales of an impressive half a million dollars, allowing Raymond to expand Victoria's Secret into three other stores and began a mail-catalogue which proved to be a success.

Victoria's Secret made buying lingerie not only a pleasure but a must in the late 1980s and 1990s. The upscale lingerie and apparel firm took shopping for lingerie from the neglected corners of department stores and put it front and center in thousands of boutiques throughout the United States. Both men and women happily flocked to the sensuous, sumptuously decorated shops and buying sexy innerwear was no longer a chore or embarrassing for either sex.  With beautiful women, seductive clothing, and billions of dollars in profit, Victoria’s Secret appears to be a secure and perfect business. And though it may be secure and somewhat perfect now, there lies a secret in the shadow of its history that may be surprising and unexpected for those who discover it.

 Leslie H. Wexner

In 1982, five years after opening his store, which provided a $6 million dollar profit per year, Raymond sold Victoria’s Secret which consisted of six faltering stores and its catalogue, for $4 million to Leslie Wexner, founder of The Limited women's apparel firm.  The Limited kept the personalized image of Victoria's Secret intact, albeit in a mass-produced, cost-efficient manner. Rapidly expanding into the terrain of America's malls throughout the 1980s, Victoria's Secret blossomed from a handful of stores to more than four hundred and solidified its exclusive image by appending its own label to all of its offerings as a brand name. In addition to volume growth, the company was able to vend a widened range of products with the aid of a popular mail catalog issued eight times annually. While corsets, teddies, and silk pajamas remained at the hub of the Victoria's Secret wheel, home shoppers could buy shoes, evening wear, and perfumes—such as Wild English Gardens and Heather's Embrace—all under a single banner promising both middle-class refinement and daring sexuality.

By the early 1990s, Victoria's Secret had become the largest American lingerie outfitters, easily surpassing both the even higher-priced Cacique chain and the racier Frederick's of Hollywood. However, despite the fact that the company had topped the billion dollar mark, its growth showed signs of stagnation. In 1993, Grace Nichols took over the executive helm from former president Howard Gross and immediately addressed allegations that the quality of Victoria's Secret's merchandise did not match its elevated price tags. In addition, Nichols placed added emphasis upon an older age group as the company's target concern. Nevertheless, while Nichols stressed that thirty-to forty-year-old women need not feel out of place in sexy underwear, the company's advertising campaigns continued to exclusively portray younger models with svelte, busty figures. Indeed, some critics saw the Victoria's Secret formula of femininity as a limitation to the majority of American women and argued that the company's image (highlighted in design series such as their English Lace line) implicitly promoted an overly bourgeois conception of "good taste." Whatever class and gender ramifications Victoria's Secret might have entailed, the company grew once again under Nichols's care throughout the 1990s, as millions of women—and men--continued to fill out their fantasies with the satin-lined aid of offerings such as the Angels bra series and, perhaps Victoria's Secret's single biggest contribution to the public imagination, the uplifting Miracle Bra.

Victoria's Secret operates three distinct units, or vehicles to reach its market:

·         Victoria's Secret Stores

·         Victoria's Secret Lingerie Catalog

·         Victoria's Secret Beauty Products

Together, these three vehicles to market combined with Victoria's Secret aggressive marketing has made Victoria Secret the best known lingerie brand and brought greater attention to the lingerie industry.

Much of Victoria Secret's success is attributed to Grace Nichols. Nichols joined Victoria's Secret in 1986 as vice president, general merchandise manager. In 1988 she was promoted to executive vice president. In 1991, Ms. Nichols was named President and CEO of Victoria's Secret. Under Nichol's leadership, Victoria's Secret has become one of the top 10 recognized brands in the world and the leading specialty retailer of lingerie.

But the story doesn’t just end there; the tragedy had only begun when Roy Raymond sold Victoria’s Secret to The Limited.  In 1984, Raymond started My Child's Destiny, a retail store for children which went bankrupt in 1986.  At the age of 47, a young business man, Roy Raymond (not to be confused with the DC Comics Roy) committed suicide by jumping off the Golden GateBridge on August 26, 1993.  He left behind two teenage children and an ex-wife.  Raymond’s suicide hurt the history of the much-loved Victoria’s Secret.  Though the reasons for his tragic death are unknown, one thing may be deduced from this story: money, beautiful women, and a profitable future cannot provide the happiness needed to wish for and strive towards a long life. Perhaps there is hope in wishing that Roy Raymond at least knew the legacy he left when he thought of embarrassed men and their wives and started a business that would rock the world of lingerie.