The Victoria’s Secret Angels gaze coquettishly from billboards and shop windows, posing in barely-there lingerie with out- of-bed tousled hair. Their thighs don’t meet in the middle, and you’d be hard pressed to find a tighter tummy on an elite athlete.
When the company launched its Perfect Body underwear range last year, many women despaired at the unobtainable and, some argued, unhealthy ideal these models represented. More than 16,000 signed a petition claiming the marketing was sending out damaging messages.
Not that it made a difference to the VS success story. Last year the US company turned over an astronomical £3.92 billion. Half a billion viewers watched its televised runway show in London in December.
Victoria’s Secret requires all its Angels to be 5ft 9in tall and have 24in waists, so they are genetically blessed. But that’s just the start of it. VS creative director Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou claimed: ‘It’s like being an Olympian – they have to be in peak condition.’