The tragic story of Victoria's Secret

Meet the creator of Victoria’s Secret, Roy Larson Raymond. Here was a man who created the sexiest underwear brand of the late 1990s. Worn by supermodels and the Hollywood elite alike, here was a man whose success was marred by depression.

This is the tragic story of Roy Raymond, a budding entrepreneur whose name was written out of one of the greatest retail success stories of the late 1990s.

During the peak of its success, the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show began in 1995. Watched by a billion people in over 190 countries, the highlight of each show was none other than the iconic Angel Wings. The Angel Wings that made Victoria’s Secret the most recognizable underwear brand in the northern hemisphere.

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Tyra Banks, Miranda Kerr, Stella Maxwell, and Adriana Lima. These supermodels were just a handful of Angels who have headlined this annual event.

As Victoria’s Secret dined on its growing success in the US, young women flocked en masse to their American stores. Young women hoping to grab a piece of glitz and glamour. Hoping to recreate their own interpretation of boudoir chic.

If there was one ingredient that Victoria’s Secret had originated, it was this. It made underwear edgy. It made it okay for underwear to be visible.

From the late 1990s, underwear - for the very first time - became a fashion statement as much as the clothes that concealed it. In its prime, Victoria’s Secret made underwear fun. But most of all, unlike its stuffy, elitist rivals, Victoria’s Secret underwear was affordable for the everyday young woman.

The birth of Victoria's Secret

As a boy, Roy had a burning passion to start his own business. For years, his passion smoldered behind the scenes until one fateful day. For Roy, that day came after an embarrassing encounter.

The encounter took place in the women’s underwear section of a department store. Roy, now married was browsing through this intimate section of the store in the hope of finding a gift for his wife.

Something, however, was wrong. Roy felt deeply uncomfortable. As he browsed and picked up various items, he could not help but feel the gaze of the other shoppers around him.

Their furtive glances in his direction continued as he browsed through the hideously patterned underwear. Underwear that wasn’t designed for his young wife - but underwear that seemed more suitable for his grandmother.

Added to Roy's discomfort and embarrassment, his face reddened as he realized that he was the only man there. Furthermore, approaching a sales assistant for help only made matters worse. The sales assistant made Roy feel so uncomfortable that he left the store as quickly as he could.

This incident made Roy feel terrible, the sales assistant made him feel like an outsider and a degenerate. A degenerate who had dared to invade the women’s underwear section of that department store.

What if there was a safe space where men could buy lingerie for their wives or girlfriends, and not feel like creeps?

This was the lightbulb moment that triggered Roy’s imagination. This lightbulb moment gave birth to Victoria’s Secret.

New Beginnings

A few months later, and with the help of $80,000, Roy and his wife opened their first Victoria’s Secret store in Paolo Alto. The year was 1977.

Within its first year, Victoria’s Secret made $500,000 from their Paolo Alto store. A hit with husbands and boyfriends, it was literally an overnight sensation.

Soon after, Roy expanded to a further three stores around San Francisco. It’s worth noting, it wasn’t just the men of Northern California who were able to buy.

Roy adopted a pragmatic approach to his customers by launching a mail-order catalog. The mail-order catalog enabled husbands and boyfriends who lived too far away from his stores, to become Victoria’s Secret customers too.

Within a few years, Roy had opened six stores. With a predominantly male clientele, his vision had finally come to life.

No longer did men feel awkward or embarrassed about buying lingerie. In Victoria’s Secret, Roy had created a sanctuary.

A sanctuary that removed the stigma that men (like him) felt when buying lingerie for their significant other. And Victoria’s Secret in itself, became an outlier within the underwear industry.

The beginning of the End

Fast forward to 1982. For Roy, all was not well. Dark clouds were descending around his world. Those dark clouds would soon haunt Roy for the remainder of his life.

Although Roy’s stores were generating $4 million in turnover, Victoria’s Secret was on the brink of bankruptcy. And in spite of his efforts to turn around the business, Roy failed to find a solution.

With all else lost, Roy desperately needed a lifeline. However, the lifeline came from an unexpected source.

Meet Leslie Wexner, a seasoned and successful retailer. In 1982, while on a business trip in San Francisco, Leslie had accidentally stumbled into a Victoria’s Secret store. As he took a closer look, Leslie knew immediately what was wrong.

Primarily, Roy had created stores for men. The problem with Roy’s vision was that his stores alienated women.

The decor in each Victoria’s Secret store were as follows - dark wood floors, red velvet, and oriental rugs. Roy's stores resembled a Victorian bordello, thus alienating the female market.

As Roy had become consumed by his vision, he had inadvertently left millions of dollars on the table by ignoring the female market. Thus, his business model began to unravel.

Leslie Wexner, ever the shrewd businessman, chose not to share his observations and concerns with Roy. No - he kept his observations and concerns to himself.

Six months later, and on the brink of bankruptcy, Roy signed away his business for the paltry sum of $1 million. As part of the deal, all Victoria’s Secret stores as well as the mail order catalog were sold to Leslie.

I can only imagine that Roy made this deal with a heavy heart. Victoria’s Secret had been his creation and his vision. He had poured his heart and soul into his company. And now, for $1 million, his company was sold to a man who Roy admitted, gave him the creeps.

Roy’s misgivings towards Leslie, turned out to be correct as the deal was not mutually beneficial. However, at the time, Roy had little choice as he was desperately in debt.

Meanwhile Leslie had other plans for Victoria’s Secret and none of them included Roy.

A National Brand

By the early 1990s, Victoria’s Secret was a national American brand with 350 stores (coast-to-coast). Under new management, Roy’s bordello-like interiors had been erased from the brand.

Gone were the dark woods and the oriental rugs. In came candy-striped wallpaper, combined with matching pink carpets.

Under new management, Victoria’s Secret was primarily targeted towards fashionable young women.

New Business Ventures

A wise man once said, “as one star rises, another star falls”.

For Roy Larson Raymond, his star was about to fall into an abyss.

Ever the creator, Roy launched himself into a new project. This time, a new project outside of the lingerie market.

By 1984, shortly after selling Victoria’s Secret to Leslie, Roy opened a children’s store which he called My Child’s Destiny. Using the proceeds from his deal with Leslie, Roy plowed $850,000 dollars into his new business venture.

Sadly, the children’s store came to nothing. And by 1986, with the children’s store in ruin, Roy was forced to file for bankruptcy once more.

While a chapter 11 filing is disappointing for any business owner, it does not always mean personal ruin.

For Roy and his wife, however, the chapter 11 filing threw them into financial ruin. This was because the business structure of the children's store had never been incorporated.

This lack of foresight meant that when Roy got into financial difficulties - he and his spouse faced total liability.

Unlike Victoria’s Secret, this new bankruptcy meant that Roy and his wife had to sell off most of their prized personal assets. Personal assets that included two luxury homes and their personal cars.

Sadly, the failure of the children’s store was inevitable. My Child’s Destiny was marketed poorly. Plus, the store was situated in an odd location. A location too far away from the foot traffic of passers-by.

For Roy, it seemed that he had lost the Midas touch. The Midas touch that ignited the success of Victoria’s Secret.

The Final Chapter

By the early 90s, now divorced and no closer to realizing his former success, Roy fell into a deep depression.

On August 26, 1993, a middle-aged man - matching Roy’s description - was seen walking towards the Golden Gate Bridge.

A few hours later, a local coast guard found Roy’s body floating near the shoreline.

Roy’s suicide was barely reported at the time of his death and while Victoria’s Secret was a roaring success in the 90s and 2000s, by 2018 its past glories had long gone.

Today - generation Z views Victoria’s Secret as irrelevant.

Irrelevant and misaligned with todays narrative. The death of an iconic brand is inevitable. By its very definition, icons enjoy their moment in the sun in a zeitgeist bubble before gradually fading away.

The greatest tragedy of this story is that Roy, the creator of Victoria’s Secret, never enjoyed its zeitgeist and its decade-long moment in the sun.

Author: Ella Graysun