The Victoria’s Secret brand is one of the prominent modeling groups in the industry today, yet it has often received criticism for hiring only “traditionally beautiful” models. However, the brand has finally casted an openly transgender model, 22 year old Brazilian Valentina Sampaio. She had been hired for catalog work for VS Pink, with her hiring, the brand seems to finally be moving in the right direction. Last year Ed Rozek, the chief marketing officer for VS Pink, expressed a lack of interest in casting transgender models, when Carmen Carrera from Repaul auditioned for VS she didn’t make the cut back in 2015 because she was “Transgender”. Later, in an interview with Vogue, he apologized for expressing a lack of interest towards transgender models.

Later on, the company announced that Mr. Razek was retiring. Mr. Razek was quoted for saying he did not think the company needed to cast models who are “transsexuals”. He later on apologized on Twitter that his comments “came across as insensitive”. He had also said, “to be clear, we absolutely would cast a transgender model for the show, we’ve had transgender models come to the castings and like many others they didn’t make it… but it was never about gender, I admire and respect their journey to embrace who they really are”. 

The VS market has fallen apart due to its strict inclusion of traditionally beautiful girls, those who are not overwei

ght and fit into a certain category of beauty. You have to be skinny and have a small waist in order to make it on VS. VS honestly shouldn’t be all about what we have considered picturesque, women of all colors, shapes, sizes, and sexuality should be included. All women are beautiful and VS has often made some women feel insecure by only painting certain types of women as beautiful. VS needs to embrace inclusivity in order for its success, as well as the well being of women and girls across the globe. All women are beautiful in their own way, and they should feel as so. VS puts out the wrong idea, they make it seem like there is only one way to be beautiful, they share this concept of a singular ideal woman. Many do not shop at VS because they feel too insecure to do so. Competition has even arisen, new lingerie startups such as Third Love and Savage x Fenty have embraced inclusion, which allows them to pose a threat to the VS behemoth. In conclusion, Victoria’s Secret needs to embrace all women in order to maximize sales and to make females across the world feel better about themselves.