Interpreting Victoria's Secret

It is no secret that today’s society defines beauty as thin, long-legged women with statuesque bodies. Examples are found everywhere just by glancing at the closest magazine ads or by scrolling down the latest fashion article online. Normal, everyday women are being forgotten and tossed aside to make room for the “Top-Model”-like women currently crowding up Hollywood. Media depicts women as an unattainable image. They pressure ladies to buy the products they’re advertising; luring them with false advertisements promising that with it, they too could be perfect. While the media portrays women in a certain way for advertising and marketing benefits, it has caused numerous negatives effects to women’s self-esteems nationwide, it contradicts

In “The Fashion Industry: Free to be an Individual” by Hannah Berry, Hannah emphasizes how social media especially advertisements pressure females to use certain product to in order to be considered beautiful. She also acknowledges the current effort of advertisement today to more realistically depicts of women. In addition, these advertisements use the modern women look to advertise products to increase women self-esteem and to encourage women to be comfortable with one’s image.

The definition of true beauty continues to evolve as generations pass and new ones emerge. Ulta Beauty, a popular cosmetic store, sells products with the aim to make women feel confident in their skin. Their use of advertisements helps spread the word about new, improved product lines and reach out to potential buyers. Selling makeup is the obvious goal of a cosmetic store, but the kind of consumers they attract and how varies between different franchises. When a company displays their products in one shot instead of in a commercial, the task of conveying the message becomes harder. Ulta Beauty persuades women to purchase their products by pointing out buyers’ insecurities while still appearing to promote empowering feminist values.

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”  French existentialist writer, Simone de Beauvoir, states in The Second Sex (1949), powerful analysis of what a woman should be in the West. She goes into detail on how femininity is a social construct and was constructed for the male gaze, the patriarchy (Nigel Warburton, 2014). This is an argument in both Sandra Lee Bartky’s Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power, according to her, you are born into your gender, not the characteristics of it (2010, 27). And in Rosalind Gill’s Supersexualize Me!: Advertising and the ‘Midriffs’, she discusses how advertisements are a major factor in shaping our views on what is masculine and feminine (2007, 95). In this essay, I will compare each chapters’ arguments, this includes power and femininity and who is to blame for disciplining women’s bodies to fit a narrow spectrum of femininity; and the similarities of the arguments when discussing how femininity is being shown in the size, movement and appearance of a women’s body and how they both reject societal meanings of femininity.

In her interview with Motto, Victoria’s Secret Model Erin Heatherton admitted, “My last two Victoria 's Secret shows, I was told I had to lose weight. I remember staring at my food and thinking maybe I should just not eat.” Erin, like many, was pressured by Victoria’s Secret and societal standards to get a near perfect body image. Stores and their advertisements influence how humans behave, see themselves, and think of other people. Stores can affect consumers in negative and positive ways. Victoria’s Secret, known for its quality lingerie, has also branched off into perfumes, apparel, and lotions. Their audience encompasses mainly ranging from preteen to middle aged ladies. Many of their target audience members are easily influenced by Victoria’s Secret’s advertisement strategies and sales. Victoria’s Secret at the Empire Mall in Sioux Falls attracts customers with elaborate displays, and periodic sales and erases identity by creating a false sense of normalcy.

In order to generate astonishing revenue, Mouret’s Ladies’ Paradise employs techniques to create spontaneous desire by playing on customers’ sense of sight, which would help women, who make up the majority of department store customers, realize their independent desires for femininity. The first thing one sees when one walks into a brightly lit department store is the displays. In an appeal to his customers’ sight, Mouret throws brightly colored scarves in heaping piles on a display in the front of the store. According to Elaine Abelson, “Subtlety was not an attribute of merchants in the late nineteenth century. If there was color used, it appeared in massive displays” (44). Such flamboyancy attracts women wishing to release their own creativity, suppressed by the male-dominated society. The lack of harmony in the displays portrays Mouret’s belief “…that customers should have sore eyes by the time they [leave] the shop”

According to Kim Bartel, the stereotype of a housewife was created through the continuation, and constant exposure of consumers to patterns of imagery (91). The female role has naturalized in popular culture, especially in advertisements. These advertisement constantly portray women as either the cook, maid, or caretaker of the home. During the early 1950s and late 60s advertisements start to objectify female identity in order to use their images to sell either products or a lifestyle. In this sense marketer begin to realize the value women had on selling items.

A majority of women today are simply viewed as sex symbols, and lingerie is now always used to either make a profit or used for lust. The saying, “Sex sells” has overridden the concept of women as people and turned them into possessions and prizes to today’s public. The days of viewing women as angelic and precious have permanently been replaced

For quite a long time, Hollywood and the publicizing media sustained a cliché picture of ladies. Subsequently, numerous buyers have the impossible desire that numerous ladies are (or ought to be) poreless, hipless, smooth haired, high-cheekbones, measure), 20-year-old goddesses. Be that as it may, is this excellence myth at long last evolving? Organizations like Ascena Retail gathering, parent to larger size retailer Lane Bryant, are doing their darndest to see that it does. Path Bryant was established in 1900 in New York as the principal ladies' attire retailer dedicated only to hefty sizes. In 2012 they were procured by Ascena Retail Group, who trusts that Lane Bryant's notorious image and market administration will add to Ascena's key arrangement

Victoria's Secret illustrates an impractical relationship between

“Increasingly, young women are presented not as passive sex objects, but as active, desiring sexual subjects, who seem to participate enthusiastically in practices and forms of self presentation” (Gill 3). This idea that women are empowered, desiring sexual subjects, who openly play with their sexual power can be daunting to young women who do not feel comfortable acting in such a way. Viewing advertisements that convene such a message could pressure women to unwillingly present themselves in a sexual manner. However, if women dress too proactively and act too promiscuously they are labelled as ‘sluts’. Society also promotes, based on midriff advertising, that a women’s worth is based on her body. “The body is portrayed in advertising and in many other parts of the media as the primary source of women’s capital” (Gill 5). Young women feel pressure to alter and add to their bodies so they can fit the ideal body and beauty standards that are prescribed by advertisements. However, these ideal women that are featured in advertisements are not as perfect as they seem, this is due to technological tools like retouching and photo shop. Even the most

Many women, over the course of history, have come across crude misconceptions that society makes about us. Society has made stereotypes that as women “we belong in the kitchen” or “we could never amount to men”. The world around us is constantly underestimating our abilities and doubting what we can accomplish. As a woman, it is time to take a stand. As the Queen B (Beyoncé) once said, “We need to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves. We have to step up as women and take the lead.” The new “I Will What I Want” Under Armour advertisement, just like Beyoncé’s quote, depicts this exact attitude towards the empowerment of women through advertising their new sports bra. The women in the Under Armour advertisement portray the misconceptions,

The department store became a haven for women in Paris, where they could be seen outside of church, and where they could keep up with the latest fashions. Zola compared the department store to a “temple” that was devoted to the pleasures of women and a “cathedral” of modern commerce. Like Eve being tempted by the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the women who shopped at the department stores became seduced by the “mountain of

Victoria's Secret has a stronghold on the lingerie market. Its store sales this year brought in over $6.1 billion, Even so, some are saying that Victoria's Secret's explosive success might start tumbling because of the paramount demographic of millennials and their changing attitudes. Research analyst Nikki Baird of research firm RSR explained in Forbes how many retailers are trying to cater to millennials to save themselves, but millennials' preferences may not fall in line with what Victoria's Secret stands for. The lingerie industry is going through enormous changes. Thin, models have been replaced by body types that more similar to the everyday

This excerpt shows how more emphasis is put on women’s appearance and its keep up, and also shows the negative connotation of this prettiness; it is associated with shallowness. Not only is there an assumption that women spend much of their time on their appearance, but also there is the connected fact that others pay more attention to their appearance than their other character traits. This is still a reality of today as can be seen on the red carpet. Female celebrities have a whole industry devoted to making them look fashionable and pretty for events. The focus of these events becomes what they’re wearing rather than their work as actresses and singers.