This deep dive into the rise and fall of an iconic American fashion retailer, and its associated brands, was a rollercoaster ride that began in the late 1970s. Today, VS exists as a brand that has lost most of the relevance that it had in the early 2000s. A lot of factors have contributed to this decline, such as backlash from the much-maligned "woke" movement, the company's ties to Jeffrey Epstein, and industry competition.

Selling Sexy leaves the reader very unclear as to what the future might hold for Victoria's Secret. I know that wasn't the authors' job, to forecast the future, but I was a bit unsatisfied by how this book was wrapped up. My main motivation for listening to the audiobook was to learn more about this company that had such an impact on shaping the women of my generation, and in that respect, it did deliver. I thought the origin story of Victoria's Secret was really interesting, not to mention the way the company tried and failed repeatedly over the years to empower women. Basically, my takeaway was that a company run by men is obviously never going to succeed in serving women, no matter how hard it tries -- especially if its chief goal is sexiness, function be damned.

The narrator was a good choice for this audiobook.

More textbook than a podcast
starts engaging then falls off
very informative
lacks the entertainment aspect
I loved the concept so much but....
DNFd

I give Selling Sexy a solid four stars! As someone who grew up loving Victoria's Secret in the 1990s, I found this book fascinating, diving into the iconic brand’s history and the broader evolution of U.S. retail since the 1960s. Lauren Sherman and Chantal Fernandez capture the entrepreneurial spirit of Roy and Gay Raymond and explore how Les Wexner took the brand to new heights. The book doesn’t shy away from addressing the controversies, including sexism, size-ism, and Wexner’s troubling connection to Jeffrey Epstein. Still, it maintains a balanced perspective, showing the allure and the brand's flaws. Listening to the audiobook version was a great choice—the narrator’s energetic delivery kept the historical details engaging. Selling Sexy is an informative, well-researched look at a brand that has shaped beauty ideals for generations, and I appreciated both the nostalgic and critical lenses the authors provided.
Thank you to Netgalley and MacMillion audio for this ALC for honest review.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Victorias Secret and all that goes with it. The brand, the stores, the merchandise and of course the models and fashion shows. A truly interesting and history telling read. Thank you to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio and the Author, Lauren Sherman for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC! This audiobook was fantastic. I loved VS growing up and adored learning about the history.

This is a very factual and informative novel on the making of Victoria Secret. Roy Raymond started Victoria Secret with his wife. Wexner and Moroski bought it from him. Les Wexner built a billion dollar retail empire. His companies included The limited, Express, Bath and Body Works, and Victoria Secrets. As Americans views on women’s bodies, thinness, perfection, and what makes a woman beautiful changed, Victoria’s Secret did not. This , coupled with Wexner’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and the FBI investigation that followed caused him and his wife to step down from the board in 2021. Victoria Secret has moved toward an all inclusive body type as it tries to regain its market share. Thank you @macmillan.audio #allysonryannarrator does an excellent job on the audio narrator.

A fascinating exploration of a company everyone has opinions on - really enjoyed and learned so much

This was an interesting listen about Victoria's Secret and their downfall and how they are trying to get back to the top of the charts. With all the current info on Jeffrey Epstein, the connect between him and Les Wexner who bought Victoria's Secret, was interesting. Now they have a new owner and are trying to build the brand back up.

Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillen Audio for the ARC audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This book was clearly very thoroughly researched. The author definitely did her homework on the history of Wexner and LBrands, to the point where it was almost like a history textbook of the company.

The book doesn’t really live up to the title. It was purely the factual account of the building of the LBrands empire and Wexner’s life. There was also a fair amount of discussion of competitor companies that seemed a little disjointed from the rest of the book.

This could definitely use some editing down, as the book was so long that I sped it up to 2x speed to get through it. I don’t think it was a bad book. It was just a lot of statistics and names and recounting of information that is already public. I don’t think this book covers anything that isn’t really already known or knowable about the company.

Selling Sexy is the complete guide to the history of Victoria's Secret. From the very beginnings of the lingerie a "fast fashion" industries through the 90s and early 200s when Victoria's Secret was a complete global powerhouse, the authors do a fantastic job providing very indepth facts. Unfortunately this can sometimes be a bit dry for a reader. As a young women during the height of the Victoria Secret empire it was absolutely fascinating to learn some of the history. I also really enjoyed reading about the current problems that the Victoria Secret board members have going on as it relates to the Harvey Weinstein of it all. This book is full of of lots of details, some very interesting and some not as exciting, but definitely a worthwhile read / listen.

The stuff that was about Victoria's Secret and Les Wexner was really thorough and informative. However, the authors felt the need to begin their book by promoting extremist corsetry myths and the audio narrator didn't learn how to pronounce the designer names throughout, which brought down the quality of the book slightly.

That being said, I am and will always be a VS apologist and Angel fan.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an ALC of this audiobook.

I was interested in this book mostly because I worked with VS many years ago. Some of the book is salacious (jeffrey epstein) but a lot is a bore about malls, corsets and stuff i could have skipped.

An interesting history of the American fashion industry specifically focused on Victoria's Secret. At parts it was a bit confusing keeping up with who was who, especially in the beginning when talking about some of the key player's starts in the industry.

In Selling Sexy, Lauren Sherman and Chantal Fernandez tell the story of both the iconic Victoria's Secret brand, and also the broader story of U.S. clothing retailing since the 1960s. The begin with entrepreneurial visionaries Roy and Gay Raymond, who originated the VS origin story, the brand's innovative catalog, and its lavish boutique flagship store in San Francisco. When the Raymonds' financial management couldn't keep up with the brand's ambitions, Victoria's Secret landed with merchandising wizard and founder of The Limited, Les Wexner. It was Wexner who took VS to stratospheric new heights from the 1980s onward, shepherding the brand through shifting beauty ideals, disruptions in retailing, the VS Angels era, the advent of little-sister brand Pink, and more. Sherman and Fernandez also take a critical look at the sexism, size-ism, and various failures in leadership that have plagued VS throughout its history, including the unsettling association between Wexner and sexual predator and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

As a reader who came of age in the 1990s loving Victoria's Secret, this was a fascinating audiobook listen for me. I loved learning the history of a brand that's meant a lot to me and to generations of women before and after me. Even when Sherman and Fernandez shine a light on the more unsavory aspects of VS, I could still feel their enthusiasm for the brand coming through, and I think that's important. A mere takedown of VS by writers who didn't care wouldn't have been nearly as compelling.

Audiobook is a great format choice for Selling Sexy. Narrator Allyson Ryan has a perfect voice for the book and gives it an energetic delivery. The audio format also helped pull me through some of the less engaging, names-and-dates aspects of telling a historical story.

My thanks to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for providing me with a review copy of Selling Sexy, which will be published on October 8, 2024.

super interesting book about victoria's secret. I learnt quite a few things about the cultural consequences of the brand, but what i didn't like was it didn't engage enough with the cultural contexts before the brand existed. i also didn't like that the author assumed some basic knowledge. looking up whether and how a person/brand was important took me out of the narrative. but still interesting!

What an interesting read. Have you ever thought about the history of lingerie? Me neither. This book was much more fascinating than I gave credit for when I hit the request button. Check it out, you won't regret it!

As someone born in the mid 80’s and someone always interested in fashion… I really enjoyed this. Yes, it felt educational and like a book I would have to read for one of my fashion courses, still if you’re into that thing or around the same age you feel the nostalgia of it. Brings me back in time a bit, all while being quite insightful. It’s not the most colorful or exciting writing but it was good. This one is probably either for you or not at all for you. Win for me.

Victoria’s Secret, Bath and Body Works, Express, the Limited… these stores were peak teen mallrat stops in the 1990s. As the author talked about the children of boomers and our shopping habits, the peak of malls in the 1980s, and the stores that defined my youth shopping trips (along with the how/why for what was sold within them), I thought of the VS giftcard I’ve had in my wallet since Christmas with really no drive to use. How the mighty have fallen as our shopping habits shifted, options expanded, and fashion changed. All these thoughts raced while I heard “Victoria is an Old Man from Ohio” lyrics playing in my head (Jax’s “Victoria’s Secret” - which I learned in this book was released after Les Wexler left the company and what a shame he wasn’t the one to respond with the CEO letter).

I found this book to be full of fascinating information about the Victoria Secret company: the rise from a small business to a an empire; the men driving women’s fashion with “women dress to please men” mentality; the incestuousness of senior leadership across companies - leading to acquisitions, partnerships, and collapses. As well as anecdotes on the VS Angels, the celebrity of the models, and the sale of “hope” which was really male fantasy.

This book touches on the relationship of Jeffrey Epstein to the Victorias Secret brand and Les Wexler, but the insights are limited and largely rumor. It’s unfortunate Les Wexler refused to participate in the book.

Despite Wexler’s refusal, this book is well researched and loaded with facts and data. My only complaint is it does bounce around on the timeline a bit as new elements are introduced, and with an audio book it is difficult to “flip back” and figure out what else was going on at that time.

The narrator does a fantastic job of managing pace and cadence amidst a large amount of data without sounding robotic or monotonous.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really interesting read and I learned so much. Not only did I learn about the highs-and-lows and the ins-and-outs of Victorias Secret, but I learned about the fashion industry, modeling, this history and evolution of bras, the making and declining of shopping malls, and some names behind the famous brand. As a customer of VS for multiple decades, I didn’t know majority of what was happening behind the scenes of the brand. Overall, interesting read.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of this audiobook!

I have long been fascinated by the way capitalism has participated in the way drastic standards women and their bodies are held. Victoria's Secret has been a long known perpetuator of unrealistic body standards and I think Selling Sexy does a good job at highlighting this issue. My only difficulties with the audiobook were that at times, the information leaned heavily on the history of the clothing industry rather than going all in on women's issues as a whole. I found this information interesting, but dry at times. For those newer to this topic, this will be a great introduction, but as someone who is well versed in women's issues, I unfortunately did not learn much new information from this book.