Inside reports of a toxic culture at Victoria's Secret

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February 3, 2020

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Candidates get ready for the Iowa caucuses, American women are running faster than ever before, and things were what they seemed at Victoria’s Secret. Have a productive Monday.
– No Angels. Sometimes, things are what they seem. An investigation in the New York Times this weekend revealed just how misogynistic and toxic the work environment was—for employees and models—behind the scenes at Victoria’s Secret.
I can’t say I was shocked by the report. This is a company known for selling underwear to women through the lens of male fantasy—with a CEO who in 2018 gave an interview disparaging plus-size and “transsexual” models. And perhaps most damningly, it’s one whose parent company, L Brands , was recently thrust into the spotlight over its CEO’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Nevertheless, the NYT story sheds new light on how the brand’s public image—and reluctance to evolve with the times—came from the top.
According to the Times ‘ reporting, Ed Razek, Les Wexner’s longtime No. 2, asked models to sit on his lap and tried to kiss them; touched a model’s crotch before the 2018 Victoria’s Secret fashion show; and was the subject of repeated complaints of inappropriate conduct. Numerous women say they alerted Wexner to Razek’s behavior, and some allege that they faced retaliation; model Andi Muise says that the brand stopped hiring her for its fashion shows after she rebuffed Razek’s advances—advances that reportedly included Razek suggesting that the then-19-year-old move in with him in a house in Turks and Caicos. Former PR employee Casey Crowe Taylor, who says Razek once berated in public over her weight, called the toxic culture “brainwashing.”
“The accusations in this reporting are categorically untrue, misconstrued or taken out of context,” Razek said in a statement. Victoria’s Secret told the NYT that it is “intensely focused” on corporate governance, workplace and compliance practices and “regret[s] any instance where we did not achieve this objective and are fully committed to continuous improvement and complete accountability.”
Victoria’s Secret has ended its longtime fashion show and is still struggling to rebound from Wexner’s close ties to Epstein. But it shouldn’t have taken a pedophile for this company to come under scrutiny—and for its dated, airbrushed facade to come crumbling down.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe

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PARTING WORDS

"That is the greatest compliment I can get, when someone will say to me, 'I read your darn book till 4 in the morning.'"
-Suspense and thriller author Mary Higgins Clark. She died at 92 on Friday.