Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons takeaways - Image is everything for a brand

Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons, Hulu's latest three-part docu-series, premiered on July 14, 2022, dropping all three episodes at once.

The controversial and honest take on one of the biggest brands of all time yielded promising results. Matt Tyrnauer's investigative approach brought out a lot of dirty secrets to the fore, including CEO Les Wexner's alleged association with Jeffrey Epstein.

The documentary had enough material for every kind of viewer. Amid the bustling world of fashion, glamor, exploitation and objectification, there were valuable lessons on both how to build a brand and how not to. The sections focusing on Wexner were especially crucial to this takeaway.

Through Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons, Tyrnauer explored the story of Victoria's Secret from both the inside and the outside, resulting in a complete portrait.

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How Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons sets up the importance of image over everything else

One of the key things about Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons was its coverage of the brand's humble beginnings and the latest controversies that led to its downfall. Les Wexner's story was also shown in detail.

Wexner understood the importance of image before everyone else, and that's what led to the beginning of his brand. His idea of using a fictional Victoria's backstory worked wonders to create a market that did not exist.

Wexner's understanding of images and marketing strategies helped create the 'fantasy' of Victoria's Secret. Things eventually snowballed into a whole generation of fashionwear inspired by the male gaze.

The vibrant fashion shows and the use of women who are confined to the white man's standards of beauty all resulted in the creation of a brand that became a pop culture behemoth.

However, Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons also showed how the image of Victoria's Secret in the present day resulted in the company's downfall in an increasingly changing world. Today, inclusion and acceptance are two of the major components of any brand's success, and Victoria's Secret lacked both.

The documentary artfully depicted how the brand's inability to shift from old notions eventually resulted in its degradation.

Wexner's alleged connection to Jeffrey Epstein also played a part in this massive change, but the journey towards the brand's downfall started before this connection came out in public. Slowly, the many malpractices of the company also came to the fore, tarnishing the image of the once revered brand.

This showed how a brand's image can both be a building block as well as a reason for destruction. In the present-day capitalistic environment, image plays a bigger part than demand or usage. The image creates the need for an item, and it can also destroy it. This is perhaps the biggest takeaway from the near three-hour documentary.

Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons is out on Hulu in the United States of America. It will be released on July 15, 2022, on Paramount+ in the United Kingdom. International release dates are yet to be announced.