Exclusive: Victoria’s Secret president shares how the brand reignited its bra sales

It’s no secret that Victoria’s Secret’s once-booming bra business lost some lift over the last decade.

As shoppers increasingly chose comfort over sex appeal, and the ideal of its Angels fell back down to Earth, its sales and market share eroded. But one year into CEO Hillary Super’s turnaround plan, Victoria’s Secret’s bra sales have achieved annual growth for the first time in four years.

Last year, Super, who took the helm in 2024, introduced the company’s four-pillar Path to Potential turnaround plan, which included shifting the retailer’s leadership structure to three brand presidents for the Victoria’s Secret brand, PINK, and beauty. Chief Merchandising Officer Anne Stephenson was tapped to lead Victoria’s Secret, tasked specifically with Super’s strategy of “supercharging bras” and regaining its “authority” in the category, Super said on an earnings call.

The effort has spawned successful innovations, and its latest launch, Invisible by Victoria’s Secret Strapless Collection, debuting tomorrow with a “Season of Strapless” campaign starring WNBA player Angel Reese, aims to further push up the business.

“We’ve rebuilt an innovation engine that was something that we weren’t as invested in,” Stephenson told Retail Brew. “When everybody is focused on the same thing with the same level of ambition and excitement and enthusiasm—and we’re delivering market-leading products again—magic happens.”

Down to the wire: While Victoria’s Secret previously varied its focus across categories like swim and sport, it now has an “always on” approach to bras, positioning them at the front of the store and making them the centerpiece of innovation and marketing, Stephenson said.

“There’s no moment that we’re not talking about a core bra franchise or a new innovation now,” she said. “There might have been moments where we weren’t as forceful about it, and so it’s really an amplification of something that we do well.”

Its FlexFactor Lightly Lined bra launch in July was the first to emerge from this playbook. Made with titanium alloy underwire to improve movement and comfort, the bra drove double-digit new customer growth and also lifted sales across all Victoria’s Secret bras for “the first time in years,” Super said in August.

Now, its new strapless launch seeks to “reinvent” a bra category consumers are most often “disappointed” with, Stephenson said. The new bra has upgraded fabric, a number of lining levels—and most importantly for wary bra-wearers—a grippy (not sticky) technology to hold it up.

Consumers have come to view Victoria’s Secret “a bit one dimensionally,” Stephenson said, so it’s been “mission critical” for the retailer to market its wide range—from its signature sexy lingerie to more daily-wear T-shirt bras.

“Our goal is to basically have a bra for every woman,” she said.

Voice of an angel: The company’s remodeled marketing has kickstarted that return to growth.

The brand is increasingly turning to influencer marketing and new faces, like Reese, to market the brand. Reese, the first pro athlete to walk its fashion show in October, serves as “a great example of part of who we see as our future,” Stephenson said.

It’s switching up its voice, too. The brand got “a little serious,” Super said last year. Now, it’s having a bit more fun. While “it’s hard to sell a sexy story and combine it with tech,” Stephenson noted, it’s employing a more “modern, relevant” voice to market its products’ benefits. The company touted last July’s FlexFactor as “better than being braless,” while a February campaign for its T-shirt bra dubbed the product “your favorite T-shirt’s favorite bra.”

Stephenson said the refreshed brand voice stems from a “critical” partnership between Chief Creative Officer Adam Selman, formerly of Savage X Fenty, and Chief Marketing and Customer Officer Elizabeth Preis, an Anthropologie and J.Crew vet, both appointed last spring.

Lift off: Victoria’s Secret has enacted a lot of change over the past year, but the retailer’s recent success demonstrates that “focus is powerful,” Stephenson said. Its bra business grew mid-single-digits in Q4, with new launches attracting more young customers, she said.

“Transitioning teams to focus on brand and pillars of product has been very powerful for people in their learning and in their development,” she said. “The speed at which we’re trying to execute change and growth is probably the biggest challenge. But it doesn’t feel like a challenge. We’re loving it.”