Celebrating Inclusivity

There are lots of protests these days in America.  Whatever the issue, you can easily find loud voices protesting for or against just about anything.  What women wear may not be a place of protests today, well the days of burning your bra wasn’t really all that long ago, yet there seems to be a great deal of commotion in the industry.  For example, Rory Satran in her article for Off Brand in the Wall Street Journal declared, “The Anti-Victoria’s Secret Underwear Revolution Is Here…A new wave of inclusive, direct-to-consumer brands aimed at Gen Z and millennial shoppers—including Parade, Cuup and Negative— is shaking up the intimates market”. 

Well not only is the intimates market getting shaken, but how companies are marketing to women in general is changing.  Again using intimates as the example, in the late 1990s, Victoria’s Secret loomed large. The company’s notoriously sexy catalog, filled with perfect-seeming “Angels” like Heidi Klum, Tyra Banks, Stephanie Seymour and Karen Mulder, was on top of the world and during that time, stock in Victoria’s Secret’s parent company L Brands soared, making its owner Leslie Wexner a billionaire. 

Today, Victoria’s Secret is attempting to find its footing amid changing beauty standards and declining market share.  The annual Victoria’s Secret fashion show is no more and the company has worked to refresh its brand positions to be more inclusive and more consistent with the attitude and lifestyle of the women of today. In a February earnings call, CEO Martin Waters said, “We’re moving from what men want to what women want.” 

Now, women young and old are seeking new underwear brands, and fashion brands in general that they can identify with more fully. As Satran said in her article about the intimates market, “They demand comfort as well as sexiness and structure, inclusive sizing and non-objectifying advertising imagery featuring a diverse group of models.” And increasingly, direct-to-consumer underwear companies, many of them founded by women, are answering that call. Within the past 10 years, we’ve witnessed the rise of such brands as ThirdLove, Negative, Cuup, Skims, Kit Undergarments, Savage X Fenty, True & Co. and Parade.  But this more inclusive trend is also apparent in multiple fashion categories and for consumer products in general. 

There is no doubt that the pendulum has swung in a new direction and while it will continue to move back and forth, it is such a positive time for all people of all shapes, sizes, colors and ethnic backgrounds and we hope it continues.  We hope as business returns to “normal” following the pandemic, this is the new normal, and we celebrate life in general…of course as we go out and buy more clothes keeping all our friends in the fashion world going.