Viagra hit the market, with the introduction of Cialis
(tadalafil) from Eli Lilly and Levitra (vardenafil)
from Bayer and GlaxoSmithKline.
Further Reading
Baglia, Jay.Viagra Ad Venture: Masculinity, Marketing,
and the Performance of Sexual Health. New York: Pe-
ter Lang, 2005.
Li, Jie Jack.Laughing Gas, Viagra, and Lipitor: The Hu-
man Stories Behind the Drugs We Use. New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 2006.
Loe, Meika.Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill
Changed Sex in America. New York: New York Uni-
versity Press, 2006.
Bernadette Lynn Bosky
See also Drug advertising; Ecstasy; Health care;
Medicine; Pharmaceutical industry.
Victoria’s Secret
Identification Speciality megaretailer of women’s
intimate apparel and related products
Victoria’s Secret is an innovative producer and marketer of
intimate apparel and related products. Numerous products
were first brought to the mass market by the firm, and its
brand appeal is global in scope. During the 1990’s, the firm
expanded to become one of the most well-known retailers of
women’s intimate apparel.
The first Victoria’s Secret store was opened by Roy
Raymond in San Francisco, California, in 1977. Ray-
mond established the store believing that it was em-
barrassing for men to purchase lingerie within the
typical department store. A hallmark of the store was
the arrangement of bras and panties together by
styles and mounted on the wall in frames for ease of
browsing within the upscale decor. After opening a
number of stores, Raymond sold the company in
1982 to The Limited.
The Limited grew the brand by expanding into
shopping malls in the 1980’s. The 1990’s became
formative years for the company as it massively ex-
panded, created a multitude of innovations, and be-
came a well-known brand name. The Limited (now
Limited Brands) evolved Victoria’s Secret into a
mail-order business. In 1995, the publicly traded In-
timate Brands, Inc., was created, composed of Victo-
ria’s Secret, Victoria’s Secret Catalogue, Cacique,
Penhaligon’s, and Bath and Body Works. That year,
there were 671 Victoria’s Secret stores and 324 mil-
lion catalogs shipped to customers, with sales total-
ing $1.9 billion. Over 12 million sales calls were han-
dled by store associates. Throughout the 1990’s,
stores were added at a steady pace, with a total of 896
stores across the nation by 1999 taking in a total of
$2.1 billion in sales. Victoria’s Secret continued to
mail out its catalog and combined it with an online
store, which was consolidated into Victoria’s Secret
Direct in 1998, with total sales in 1999 of $956 mil-
lion.
Throughout the decade, chairman and chief ex-
ecutive officer of Limited Brands, Leslie H. Wexner,
pushed for innovation in both products and pro-
cesses, many executed under the able supervision of
Edward G. Razek. Victoria’s Secret became the dom-
inant lingerie brand in the world during the decade,
with its lingerie, swimwear, bath and fragrances, and
hosiery products finding wide appeal in the United
States, Europe, and Asia. In 1996, Victoria’s Secret
launched the first seamless bra, Perfect Silhouette,
one of the fastest-selling products in the company’s
history. The following year, Razek supervised the
launch of Angels, a set of sheer bras and panties
whose advertisements featured gorgeous women in
the company of the English singer Tom Jones for
comic effect. This year also witnessed the introduc-
tion of the Million Dollar Miracle Bra and the launch
of the highly popular English Lace series of bras and
panties. Victoria’s Secret, contrary to many of its com-
petitors throughout the decade, refused to use Hol-
lywood celebrities to market its products. The com-
pany employed supermodels or people it plucked
from obscurity from around the globe, including
Alessandra Ambrosio, Tyra Banks, Laetitia Casta,
Helena Christensen, Yasmeen Ghauri, Jill Good-
acre, Eva Herzigova, Adriana Karembeu, Heidi
Klum, Elle Macpherson, Daniela Pestova, Rebecca
Romijn, Claudia Schiffer, Stephanie Seymour, Molly
Sims, and Frederique van der Wal.
By 1997, Victoria’s Secret consistently began to
place within the top ten brands in the Most Recog-
nized Brands survey. The president of Victoria’s Se-
cret Stores, Grace A. Nichols, and Cynthia D. Fields,
president of Victoria’s Secret Direct, capably man-
aged operations in what had become a very large
and profitable company. The subsequent year, Body
by Victoria appeared, the first integrated product
launch in the lingerie business that used a brand896 Victoria’s Secret The Nineties in America