89% of Women Don’t Feel Represented by Victoria’s Secret Models

Raise your hand if you grew up absorbing images of lithe, long-limbed models with net zero body fat clad in gravity defying push-up bras, then looked down at your own sad sack of meat flesh and cued up a sad song played by the world’s tiniest violin in your head. Almost everyone? Thought so.

Since its inception in 1995, the Victoria’s Secret fashion show has been making women feel inadequate about their bodies under the guise of ‘aspirational’ marketing, and after this year’s fiasco with chief marketing officer Ed Razek admitting that Victoria’s Secret will not hire trans or plus size models because the show is about “fantasy,” it appears tides are finally shifting away from unbridled support for the annual runway show, which will be broadcast on television December 2nd.

According to a study done by curve retailer Simply Be, a whopping 89% of women don’t feel represented by mainstream media like the Victoria’s Secret runway show, to which we say, that’s all?! The statistic comes from a report comparing data about the average Victoria’s Secret Angel to the average American woman and the results are staggering, if not exactly surprising.

The average Victoria’s Secret Angel is 5”10 whereas the average woman is 5”4. Most of the Victoria’s Secret Angels wear a dress size 2 or 4 (a whopping 12.5% extend up to a size 6) where the average British woman wears a UK size 16 (a size 12 in American sizing conventions.) And perhaps the most damning statistic of all is that the average income of a Victoria’s Secret Angel clocks in at $4 million dollars, while most women in America earn under $45k and prefer to spend less than $40 on a bra.

Ouch. It really puts the whole million-dollar Swarovski crystal-studded Fantasy Bra into perspective.

The post 89% of Women Don’t Feel Represented by Victoria’s Secret Models appeared first on FASHION Magazine.