I was very pleasantly surprised by the breadth of this book! It covered quite a bit of the history of American retail as well as Victoria's Secret unique journey as a company. It was stylishly and well-written. One star off because it felt a bit torn between two books—one on the corporate story of VS, and one on Les Wexner himself. The Jeffrey Epstein material was also a bit awkwardly integrated into the VS narrative. But I truly enjoyed the read and will look out for new work from these two authors going forward.

This is a fascinating and in depth look at the Victoria's Secret empire. I'm an early 90s baby so Victoria's Secret and Pink were BIG during my middle school and high school years. They were IT. I mean, the leggings alone were the iconic wardrobe staple of majority of my female peers. The "behind the scenes look" at a company that really shaped culture of the 2000s was interesting. They (VS) really ran with the idea of lingerie being for appearing sexy and not for personal comfort. I enjoyed the writing style. It was a slow read for me, but I really enjoyed it. The book is very in-depth and informative.

Completely fascinating. The narrative is great and I learned a lot of random facts about the retail industry. It makes me appreciate the hustle that it took to make Victoria's Secret the powerhouse it was when I was a teenager while acknowledging there was some shady stuff going on in the background.

Selling Sexy is an engaging and well-researched account of Victoria’s Secret’s meteoric rise and eventual fall. The book dives into the fascinating history of one of the major brands in retail, offering an insight look at how it shaped beauty standards and consumer culture for decades.
What I loved most about this book was how seamlessly it balanced, informative and highly engaging. It packs in a wealth of facts without ever feeling dry or boring. The author does an excellent job explaining the rise of Victoria’s Secret, helping readers understand why the brand resonated so strongly with so many people. The narrative is accessible to a general audience, making it a great read, even for those unfamiliar with the intricacies of the retail industry.
The beginning of the book could have been clearer due to the two perspectives introduced. I also appreciated that the book didn’t force its story into any particular framework, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions from the facts presented.

The level of research is impressive and shows throughout the entire narrative. Whether it’s the early days of Victoria’s Secret or the more controversial aspects of its decline, the author provides thorough context and backs it up with credible sources.

If you’re interested in the intersection of business, branding, and cultural influence, or if you want to better understand the allure and challenges of a retail giant like Victoria’s Secret, Selling Sexy is an excellent choice. It’s engaging, informative, and gives a comprehensive view of a brand that defined—and challenged—American beauty standards.

I'm a very occasional VS shopper (I actually love the Auden line from Target), and I generally buy undergarments more for function than fashion, so I'm not sure why a book about the history of Victoria's Secret and its founders/leaders was so compelling.
I've been pretty oblivious to all of the scandal and backlash that VS has faced over the last several years, so it was all news to me. I didn't even know that Jeffrey Epstein had any affiliation with the brand or its leader. It was definitely interesting stuff.
Thanks to #netgalley and #henryholtandco for this #arc of #sellingsexy in exchange for an honest review.

I am so thankful to Henry Holt Books, Lauren Sherman, Chantal Fernandez, and Netgalley for granting me advanced access to this galley before publication day. I really enjoyed the dialogue and plot of this book and can’t wait to chat this one up with my friends!

Selling Sexy was absolutely absorbing. I soaked in every single word. Well written and well researched with 300+ endnotes. It was equally about Victoria's Secret beginnings, highlights, and decline as it was about the mall store mastermind Les Wexner. Wexner indeed had his finger on the pulse of retail. His stores collectively raked in billions. He was ruthless in business dealings and his association with Jeffrey Epstein is a huge blemish on his legacy. Resistance to change and failing to refresh his marketing was ultimately his demise. I wanted to shake him and yell "the '70's are over! Misogyny isn't tolerated. You can't create a company selling lingerie for the pleasure of men and not appealing to all the women you're selling to".

The beginning of Victoria's Secret and the couple that had the original vision was interesting and the struggle of Wexner to bring it to life after the buyout had me sucked in. The introduction of the Angels and live fashi0n shows catapulted VS. To be a model assured success, but the drawbacks were many with the demands and unrealistic expectations from VS. The narrowmindedness of choosing models reflected on the brand and lack of inclusion. 2020 ushered in the pandemic and sales suffered, stores closed and Wexner sold all his stock and stepped down as CEO. It is now run by women with a different vision for the future.

I definitely recommend if retail, Victoria's Secret and/or the fashion industry is of interest. There are so many eye opening tid bits here.

Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Company for early access.

This book was an interesting deep dive into the history of Victoria’s Secret. I think the book hit its stride in the second half, the first half felt a little dry and overly focused on Wexner’s history and personal life. That said, kudos to Lauren Sherman & Chantal Fernandez for how thoroughly this book was researched. Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co. for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Fascinating! I didn't know too much about the history of Victoria's Secret going into this, but this was a very approachable history documenting some of the company's most significant moments over time. I never thought of the brand of Victoria's Secret in a particularly positive light, and I can't say that this book changed that, but I definitely understand more about how Victoria's Secret came to be what it was.

This book was quite eye opening and also heartbreaking. To learn about exactly how Victoria’s Secret was bought by someone who basically collected businesses was disheartening. But it explains the way the business was run and why the products changed the way they did. The deeper connections uncovered in this book was also very troubling and made this more than a store being bought out. The whole identity of the store changed and it makes me wonder what it would have become of it if someone else with more vision had bought it. I’m glad that I learned about this company and why it experienced the struggles it did.

Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the arc.

I was so excited to read this book after seeing it on the NYT’s list of 22 Nonfiction Books To Read This Fall, and because I loved Maggie Bullock’s similar book about the rise and fall of J. Crew, The Kingdom of Prep.

But despite my love for this genre of business book, Selling Sexy fell flat for me. In fact, I only made it 20% of the way in before DNFing. It was just so slow to get started. I kept waiting for a discussion of the sexism, racism, Jeffrey Epstein of it all to start but it took so long to get out of the discussion of the early history of The Limited and Victoria’s Secret that I just lost interest.

I was nostalgic when I requested this title because I remember buying my first thong from them in middle school to impress a boy. However, reading this book didn't bring back the nostalgia the way I hoped. I felt like I was all over the place, from reading about the rise and fall to side quests about the retail strategy and business aspects. I wanted a fun read, not a book that would belong in a business course about why big name companies rise, branch out, then inevitably fall.

This was an interesting read, but it felt a little all-over-the-place at times. When it stays focused on the rise and fall of Victoria's Secret, it's great, but so often it gets sidetracked, trying to explain overall retail strategy, and other larger concepts that maybe need a few paragraphs but not as much of a detour as the book provides. There's a tighter version of this after one more edit that's an even more compelling book, or possibly even a New Yorker level deep dive.

Interesting book that details the early days of Victoria’s Secret, its founder Les Wexner, and how he grew the business in the 90’s and early 2000’s. What brought this company success also ironically ending up becoming its downfall. I also enjoyed reading about The Limited which is a chain I shopped at during my recent college grad years and was managed by the same founder.

This one was right up my alley — it's been a while since I've read nonfiction, but I've always been interested in the behind-the-scenes workings of the lingerie industry, and have been following VS's attempted rebrands over the past several years. This is, as others have said, and incredibly well-researched book. In addition to that, I feel like Sherman and Fernandez did a great job of holding my attention with their presentation of the timeline. A read I'd recommend for nonfiction lovers AND fiction/romance girlies looking to give some nonfiction a try.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Selling Sexy by Lauren Sherman and Chantal Fernandez is a must-read for those interested in the intersection of fashion, business, and cultural history. As journalists, the authors clearly conducted extensive research to present a thorough and fascinating story of how Victoria’s Secret evolves over time.

That being said, while the book delivers an impressive wealth of information, I was expecting a more narrative approach. It starts off with a deep dive into the history of corsets and bras and their journey into mainstream fashion, a section that doesn’t pique my interest. This segues into the business strategies the CEO uses to transform Victoria’s Secret into the brand we know today.

I find the detailed history of the Victoria’s Secret fashion show incredibly interesting. Having never watched it, I appreciate how the authors unpack the show’s significance for not only the company, but also pop culture.

At roughly 50% of the way through, I became more engaged with the discussions around body image, modeling, and the brand’s strategy to enter new markets, including PINK. As someone who shopped at Limited Too and later transitioned to PINK in my teenage years, I found myself reflecting on those personal experiences. The authors do an excellent job highlighting the business strategies behind these expansions, giving readers a deeper appreciation of how Victoria’s Secret shaped consumer behavior.

Even the discussion of something as specific as bralettes is compelling, as it connects to product lines I’ve purchased and vividly recall their rise in popularity. The mention of Jax’s recent pop song adds a contemporary touch, emphasizing the brand’s ongoing influence on how women perceive their bodies. The book also highlights the company’s efforts to evolve by representing a more inclusive range of body types.

Overall, Selling Sexy is informative but at times feels disjointed, with some sections not flowing smoothly into one another. Still, it’s a great read for anyone interested in nonfiction business, fashion, and history. While it’s not the type of book I normally pick up, it gave me deeper insight into a brand I previously only knew on a surface level.

Thank you to Henry Holt & Company and NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to review an advance digital copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Goodreads: Run date – Friday, October 4th (4 days before publication)
Instagram: Run date – Tuesday, October 8th (publication day)

I requested an ARC on a lark. As a woman in my late 30s, Victoria’s Secret has been somewhat of a constant in my life– I remember going to the stores with friends as a teenager, fascinated by the gilt and impractical items, and flipping through the catalogs. I’m sure it’s played a role in shaping my perceptions of femininity and even my own body.

We’ve all heard the ear worm from Jax about Victoria’s real secret: she’s an old man in Ohio making money off of women’s insecurities. This is true, and this book is a history of the corporation from its early days (before the old man in Ohio, though Victoria herself has always been fiction) to the present.

Even setting aside the nature of Victoria’s Secret’s products, this is a fascinating, highly readable corporate history that covers the earliest days of fast fashion, the transition from the department store that sells everything to the store that only sells one thing, and how a corporation tries desperately to sell an image. Some other reviewers described the book as dry, but I didn't find that to be the case. And all the skeletons in the closet! There are SO many cameos in the book that surprised me, including Jeffrey Epstein, who had disturbing ties to the corporation.

After I read the book, I visited the Victoria’s Secret website with new eyes. Its current incarnation has dramatically changed from previous versions, and we’ll see if it’s enough to survive.

Selling Sexy - Book Review
by Ricardo Santiago Soto, MBA


RICARDO REVIEWS

Selling Sexy, by Lauren Sherman and Chantal Fernandez (Henry Holt & Company, 2024)


Journalist, Lauren Sherman, BFA, brings her writing, literature and publishing experience to expose the glamorous world of lingerie retail. The author chronicles the early founder of Victoria's Secret, Roy Raymond, who launched the lingerie brand. Sherman begins at a Victoria's Secret casting of Gigi Hadid with Edward Razek inviting her to the famed fashion show. Throughout the book Sherman includes detailed examples of the Victoria's Secret lifestyle, which included wealth, supermodels, sexy lingerie, and its retail business. Lauren details how Victoria's Secret began as a mail-order catalogue competing with Fredericks of Hollywood that eventually became a retail global empire. The author uses research, history, examples, and stories for entries. Raymond was great in business, due to his MBA from Stanford, as well as, marketing experience he developed at Vicks. Gaye Raymond helped his husband publicly as Roy was often quiet and soft-spoken. You will want to add this book to your When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion (2024), The Fashion Business Manual: An Illustrated Guide to Building a Fashion Brand (2017), as well as, The Ultimate Boutique Handbook: How to Start a Retail Business (2017).


5 out of 5 stars

Thank you for sending this over!

I actually DNF’d this book. I think it’s very well-written, with a very comprehensive history of Victoria’s Secret, but I was less interested in this book for the history of fast fashion and more interested in the glitz and the glamour, as well as the dark ties Wexler had. When I finished the introduction, I wondered if I had missed the central thesis of the book, but about 1/4 way in, I realized there wasn’t a central one, or at least one I was particularly interested in. I think the authors did a great job at presenting the history of the company, though.

This is a great in-depth exploration of how companies that sell an aspirational image can quickly fall if society changes and they don't keep up with what society truly desires.