- Everybody knows what the Victoria's Secret brand means.
[laughs]
- It's tits and glitz.
♪ ♪
- Les Wexner thought that he was a god.
- Victoria's Secret put girls on the map.
- Every celebrity wanted to be part of that show.
- Business was so good.
MICHAEL GROSS: Victoria's Secret made fortunes on young bodies.
LYNDSEY SCOTT: It wasn't about the clothes.
It was models fulfilling this idea of fantasy.
There was something else going on.
GLORIA ALLRED: There's a number of red flags.
SCOTT: The modeling industry had people who allowed bad things to happen.
- Did Les Wexner know about them?
- And there's this huge mystery.
- People had mentioned this name.
BARRY LEVINE: And part of the mystery was Jeffrey Epstein.
What Wexner did was unthinkable,
giving him power of attorney.
But there's a larger picture here.
VIRGINIA GIUFFRE: Politicians, royalty.
CONCHITA SARNOFF: Intelligence agencies.
Why was Epstein doing this?
Was this about power and blackmail?
- It makes you wonder how many more layers there are to this world.
GROSS: This is all a story that was meant to stay hidden.
♪ ♪
♪ dramatic music playing ♪
[people chattering]
WOMAN: Okay, got it? Okay, thank you, everybody. PHOTOGRAPHER: Gigi, Gigi.
[people chattering]
WOMAN: Okay, they're done. Thank you, guys.
♪
- It's the countdown. Almost ready. Let's go.
WOMAN 2: Let's go. Thank you so much. - Let's go. Thank you.
ANNOUNCER: This is the 45-minute call for hair and makeup.
- Shit. [Announcer speaking]
MAN 1: Gimme a kiss. Thank you, honey.
WOMAN 3: You get it after, so just hold now.
[chattering] You have to get over.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Beautiful. You look nice, guys. Beautiful.
Look here.
Okay, we're going higher, we're going higher--
MAN 2: Hey, guys, move!
- Ask Bob. Do not tell Bob to move.
REPORTER 1: The lingerie brand held its first fashion show
nearly a quarter century ago, and it's gonna be no more.
The runway is closed.
I'm talking about the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show
is now officially canceled.
REPORTER 2: After more than two decades,
the TV special is accused of being out of step with the times.
PERSON 1: So many people do not fit
into that narrow standard of beauty.
PERSON 2: It's very obvious from what's going on in the world today
that women are demanding more.
PERSON 3: It's a company that is not at all,
sort of, surefooted in this new environment.
♪
REPORTER 3: It's hard to ignore some difficult questions
about billionaire founder Les Wexner's ties
to the late financier Epstein
who was indicted on sex trafficking charges.
LES WEXNER: I think what I've tried to do is make the world a better place.
I think that's what's really important.
N-Nobody remembers who sold the most togas in Rome.
In terms of legacy, people remember the great villains
more than they remember the great heroes.
And so, I think how you feel about yourself--
What do you say about yourself when you put your head on the pillow?
Are you really proud of what you're doing and the way you're doing it?
I think it's a really-- a fundamental question.
♪
NARRATOR: First, there was the miracle,
then came angels.
Now, Victoria's Secret introduces Angels 2000.
- The bra of the future is here today.
- Do you believe? - Do you believe?
- I believe in miracles.
- I believe. - I believe.
I believe...
♪
FREDERIQUE VAN DER WAL: You know, Victoria's Secret,
there's a great history to it,
but I think, uh, when we get to the heart of it,
it's mostly an unknown story.
SOPHIE ALEXANDER: A lot of people know what Victoria's Secret is,
and even The Limited.
Fewer people know about Les Wexner,
the discreet billionaire behind those brands.
He was and still is the richest man in Ohio.
But no one really knew who he was.
SARA ZOFKO: Les was a genius.
He thinks on a global scale
that very few other entrepreneurs have,
maybe Zuckerberg, you know?
But, like,
Zuckerberg wanted to be a part of everything we do socially.
Les was all about retail dominance.
[excited chatter]
You have to understand that this was an era where fashion influenced people,
not the other way around.
- Oh my god! Oh my god!
- Victoria's Secret grew to a $7.5 billion
enterprise worldwide.
It became a very, very powerful brand,
maybe the greatest in all of retailing.
♪
People used to say that working at Victoria's Secret was a cult.
Um, I think that's a bit of an exaggeration.
But I'll tell you, at those annual meetings,
you really felt the spirit.
[all cheering]
There was this tremendous adoration.
The founder, the leader of us all
was speaking.
[crowd cheering, applauding]
So... did I drink the Kool-Aid?
And I think the answer is... I did.
[crowd cheering, applauding]
LYNDSEY SCOTT: Growing up, Victoria's Secret would be
a model's dream to be included,
and that was
like, um... a teenage fantasy.
But I realized later that there are people
who allowed a lot of bad things to happen.
MICHAEL GROSS: Fashion is essentially amoral.
It doesn't care about good or bad.
It has no ethics.
It has one rule:
sell the frock.
No matter the collateral damage.
So, it never really surprised me
as the Jeffrey Epstein onion was unpeeled.
What face was on the next layer of the onion?
Oh, here's Les Wexner right at the top.
♪
LES: The funny story I like telling,
I, I was driving to Dayton
and I was thinking about what other businesses I could start.
And I remember saying every-- all the women I know wear underwear
most of the time,
all of the women I know would like to wear lingerie all of the time.
And I'm just driving, driving down the highway, laughing my butt off,
and thinking what a funny thought that is.
And so, I said, "I wonder why no one's done that."
REPORTER: Victoria's Secret,
a company started by Roy Raymond because he was embarrassed in stores
buying lingerie for his wife,
thought other men feeling the same would rather buy by catalog,
so panties, bras, camisoles, and corsets in fine French silk.
GAYE RAYMOND Victoria's Secret did start with just the two of us.
And I don't know if people would be surprised by the fact
that I was the inspiration for starting it.
Les Wexner had contacted Roy over the years a couple of times
because Les had always been interested in the lingerie concept.
CINDY FEDUS-FIELDS: Victoria's Secret business,
when Roy Raymond sold it to Les Wexner,
was basically on its last legs.
He was facing bankruptcy.
LES: It was, uh, kind of, Victorian velvet sofas
and Tiffany lampshades kind of a place.
GAYE: So, in 1982, Roy and I flew to Columbus on their jet.
Les Wexner was initially a little hard to read.
A-- I mean, he had an interesting group of men around him.
Everybody around him was a man.
LES: The notion of Victoria should be a ladies' paradise.
If men like Victoria's Secret, that's kind of a bonus,
but in my imagination,
they should feel in-- uncomfortable when they're in the store.
That thinking goes into the design of the store,
the fitting rooms, the fabric, the display.
It's all from the ladies' point of view. It's nothing to do with men.
GAYE: After the sale of Victoria's Secret,
it became very different.
CINDY: Les had a very powerful vision
for how that business could be grown,
could become very dominant in the marketplace.
His idea was to take an everyday commodity,
like milk or bread,
and romanticize it, fantasize it,
make it something bigger than it was.
Les had read a book written by
the famous director Sidney Lumet called Making Movies,
and said, "This is what you need to do.
"You need to have a story about your brand
"that you use as your, not only inspirational mechanism,
but also, as your control mechanism."
So, he invented a story
about the mythical founder of the brand,
and her name was, of course, Victoria.
She was refined, aspirational,
and English.
♪ classical music plays ♪
VICTORIA: I am Victoria Stewart White.
This spring, I shall turn 36 years old.
Father taught me about business,
but mother was determined that I develop
my soul, my passion, and my femininity.
Mother was passionate,
a fiery French woman with a quick temper
and a healthy disrespect for the English and their stodgy ways.
She used to tease Father about everything.
CINDY: Victoria's this smart, savvy woman,
lived in London,
her husband was a barrister.
It was a fantastic story, and it was a very powerful tool.
We're always running around, asking ourselves,
"Would Victoria do this?"
That was the touchstone.
A new young assistant buyer joined the team,
and she said, "Cindy, when do we get to meet Victoria?"
That's how real and powerful the story was.
[camera clicks] - Beautiful.
NARRATOR: Victoria's Secret is extremely protective of its image.
It doesn't want to be mentioned in the same breath
as Frederick's of Hollywood, or any, say, Trashy Lingerie store.
Top models join the catalog's creative team
in beautiful homes all around the country.
But even in this spectacular Santa Barbara mansion,
elaborate sets are erected
to enhance every outfit that's about to be photographed.
LAURA BERKMAN: We like our pictures to be sensual, elegant,
to be slightly more editorial than what most people
perceive catalog photos to be.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Yeah, right there. [camera clicks]
Keep your head down like that and just look up here.
Great.
NARRATOR: The catalog taps into America's fantasies,
a gorgeous setting,
a place every woman would dream of having her morning coffee.
FREDERIQUE: We shot every other week almost,
and we went to, uh, fantastic places around the world.
And Victoria's Secret became this home brand,
the catalog came into the mail every week.
- The catalog, in particular this year,
is going to pick up close to double last year's business.
The minute we shifted to the English image,
the response rates rocketed up.
The volume of the business then was around three million,
and when I left in 2000,
it was just shy of a billion.
FREDERIQUE: The way that they presented
the photography with the catalog,
with the-- with all the great girls, um,
it was chic,
and we actually empowered women to own their bodies.
- They made it acceptable for mainstream women
to want to buy and covet underwear.
They were givin' women permission to, to treat themselves.
CINDY: The catalog was being mailed aggressively,
going directly into consumers' homes
and acting as an advertising vehicle that made money.
REPORTER: The catalogs are certainly really, you know,
provocative, and fun, and great... - Yeah.
- ...and men like to read them, too. - Yes.
- Um, has that been really a big part of the marketing
of this company and the success? - No question, no question.
Uh, the, the catalog, I think, is, is the best advertising for the business.
HEIDI ZAK: I will say, you know, the free underwear card,
which was in every catalog,
"Bring this into the store and get a free pair of underwear,"
I succumbed to that almost every time.
I brought that card into the store,
I'd buy a few bras,
I did what that company wanted me to do.
CINDY: Spinning a fantasy,
telling a story,
is that really different
from the retail shopping experience?
When people bought the lingerie,
whether they knew it or not,
they were buying into that fantasy.
LES: Our mental model in building
the Victoria's Secret brand is Ralph Lauren.
Today, if you talk about Ralph Lauren to men or to women,
virtually of any age, everybody knows what that brand means.
I, I would venture to say all of us in the room
have a very clear sense of the personality of that brand.
It's vivid in your mind.
CINDY: Les was always a strong admirer
of Ralph Lauren,
and what Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lifshitz from the Bronx,
was able to achieve in terms of his own personal lifestyle
and the brand he built.
To a generation of American Jews, like Les Wexners,
Ralph Lauren was a story of, you know, remaking oneself
into the kinds of people who belonged to golf clubs,
you know, these other, sorts of, ritzy places where Jews in America,
once upon a time, were barred from.
- I don't know whether... I was an upper lower class,
or a lower middle class kind of kid growing up,
but, uh, parents were working.
Uh, most of the houses we lived in were rented
because we couldn't afford--
parents couldn't afford to buy a house.
CINDY: Les wanted an aspirational lifestyle,
something different than how he grew up.
♪
NARRATOR: Columbus, Ohio, test city, USA.
For the past two decades, American business has tested
more of its products in Columbus
than in any other major American community.
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Columbus was very clean-cut,
very Republican,
and was a bastion of WASP conservatism.
You know, there was an undercurrent of antisemitism.
TIM FERAN: Les had a sense of a little bit of inferiority.
That's part of this whole psychology
where Les really feels like,
"I'm gonna show them."
LES: When I was about 13 or 14 years old,
my dad got fired.
And I can remember so vividly,
say, "This is never gonna happen to me.
"When I grow up, I'm not gonna get fired.
I'm not gonna fail."
TIM: After Les's father, Harry, was fired,
he opened a full-service women's dress shop
named after Les, Leslie's.
NARRATOR: After a few years working with his parents,
Wexner came to his father with an idea.
Why not focus on women's sportswear, the store's best-selling item?
His dad's response? "You'll never be a merchant."
MICHAEL CURTIN: Les wasn't shy about telling audiences
that his dad challenged him, and basically, said to him,
"You will not be a success."
Uh, that's quite a, uh... stringent comment coming from a dad.
- It got so intense that my dad and I didn't talk for a whole year.
And, uh, my dad had a...
SARAH ELLISON: Wexner borrows $5,000 from his Aunt Ida
to set out on his own, and he opens his own store.
TIM: And he called it, because of the limited selection,
The Limited.
NARRATOR: Wexner's gamble paid off
with profits that exceeded his expectations.
And just three years later,
his parents closed their shop and joined their son.
By 1982, The Limited was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
LES: Store was successful.
And by the time I was 30 years old,
I was several times a millionaire.
And it kept expanding.
[indistinct chatter]
CINDY: Les started with one little store in Columbus, Ohio,
and grew that business into
12 or 14 brands that dominated
the malls of America.
- There was this great expression in the '80s fashion business.
"If you sell to the classes, you go to work with the masses."
If you sell to rich people,
you're gonna take the subway to your office.
But if you sell to the masses,
then you travel with the classes.
If you were a mall retailer, like Les Wexner,
you were gonna get incredibly rich if you had a knack for it,
which, clearly, the guy did.
- He created clothes for every demographic from cradle to grave.
[crowd cheering]
And the thing that Wexner figured out was,
is that women were shopping in the mall two and three times a week.
He wanted to make certain that every time they came in that store,
they were gonna see some novelty,
where the store felt like it was brand new and fresh.
Les Wexner invented fast fashion.
He is the guy who figured out how to make Americans
shop, shop, shop, shop, shop.
- Just the same way Jeff Bezos has revolutionized shopping,
the brands that Wexner started,
Victoria's Secret being one of the most successful,
revolutionized those malls.
ASHLEY MEARS: In the '80s, it was all status-driven,
going into the mall.
And today, what people are doing on social media is very similar.
It taps into that impulse.
The mall is like Instagram 1.0
in the sense that it's where people go to show off
and display themselves, and that's a pursuit of status.
- Les always said that the world designs for us,
and it was the merchant's job to edit from all the stuff that was in the world
for the customer that we were targeting.
So, the way we would accomplish this
is by shopping various fashion meccas frequently.
We were always shopping London and Paris, obviously,
also Rome,
Milan.
Oh, and I can't forget,
we also shopped the south of France in the summer.
Nice, Cannes, Saint-Tropez, oh gosh.
And the way we were able to do this,
there was a fleet, small fleet, of private jets.
You cannot imagine how much time that saved us.
- Typically, other competitors would go twice a year,
but we went more often.
At least six times a year, you would go.
MICHAEL GROSS: It's called shopping the stores.
Shopping the stores is going to look for shit that you can copy.
LINDSEY CASELLA: All employees were taught the L Brand's way,
the core ideals and beliefs of our founder, Les Wexner,
that amateurs borrow and professionals steal.
MICHAEL GROSS: Taking something that's popular in Europe,
make a tiny little change here, a tiny little change there.
If originally it was in cashmere, you sell it in acrylic.
If originally it was $800, you sell it for $35,
and boom, you know, any girl who can afford a fashion magazine
can now afford the most fashionable sweater of the season.
And in their brilliance,
The Limited even created a label for their knockoffs.
They made it sound as if it was an Italian designer named Forenza.
♪
NICOLE PHELPS: The Forenza sweater was the aspirational sweater
for my seventh and eighth grade years in the, in the mid-'80s.
All the cool girls, the popular girls, wore their Forenza sweaters.
NARRATOR: Over three million sweaters were sold,
making it the most successful sweater to ever hit America.
- It's all of a piece with what turns into the cerulean blue sweater
that Miranda Priestly berates her assistant over
in The Devil Wears Prada.
- What you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue.
It's not turquoise. It's not lapis.
It's actually cerulean.
And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that... in 2002,
Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns.
And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent, wasn't it,
who showed cerulean military jackets?
And then it, uh, filtered down through the department stores
and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner
where you no doubt fished it out of some clearance bin.
TIM: It's the sweater that built the empire
is how it's been described and very, very accurately.
♪
- Les knew that inventories had to be refreshed quickly.
And the quickest way to do that was through sourcing that he controlled,
would put him ahead of the other retailers.
TIM: Les became aware that if he wanted to make
really huge profit margins,
he was going to have to have merchandise
manufactured in places where... wages were considerably lower.
LES: We were the first American company
to do business in the PRC,
before the United States government had consular relations with China.
MICHAEL GROSS: A lot of the business was based in Hong Kong,
and then they would cross the border
where the factories were with the poorer people
making, you know, probably 15 cents an hour,
making these sweaters,
which is how you could afford to sell them for 35.
TERI AGINS: They could control everything--
manufacturing, prices.
They created this.
They did it on a grand scale,
created this great empire.
TOM PETERS: The magic of The Limited and Victoria's Secret
is that you've got a $3 billion, 2,500-store operation
that can literally do in four weeks
what it takes most of their big competitors nine months to do.
CINDY: I remember Les was taking some criticism
for doing so much of his sourcing overseas,
and so, he was putting forward a concept, "Make it in America."
And at the kickoff meeting, an older woman shouted out,
"It'll never work!"
And I was shocked.
It was Bella, his mother.
- I think it takes it a, a very unusual... parent
to encourage a kid to start his own business,
and to keep saying, you know,
"You can do it, you can do it, you can do it."
- He liked it.
He liked the rag business,
used to go with Daddy to, uh, unpack the shipments on Sunday
and hand him the hangers.
SARAH: Les and his mother, Bella,
were very, very close for years.
A longtime executive told us that
they were basically married to one another.
TIM: As the years transpired,
Les kept Harry and Bella close to him,
and they both were on the board of The Limited.
And famously, Bella's office was right across the hall from Les's.
BELLA WEXNER: You felt that there was a foundation there
that you could build on, and that's what you did.
That's just, just, just what happened.
And that, that confidence, I think that you inherit that
s-somewhere in the genes,
[Les laughs] that you inherit those qua-- You do.
I think the important thing, the message is,
is you must have confidence in yourself that you can do it.
I can do it, and I will do it.
♪
- When I reflect back on my 13 years at Victoria's Secret,
I always tell people that I felt like I went
to the Ivy League school of retailing.
Everything about how Les approached the business
from ideations around innovation, and new materials,
and product categories,
that was Les's vision.
SARA: I loved how overly thought-out it was.
It was like, here's the plan,
here's the pathway,
here's how we're gonna convert clients.
We're gonna get them in the fitting room.
Once they're in the fitting room, they're ours.
So, throw as much at them to expand that sale.
I obviously drunk the Kool-Aid and I loved it.
♪
TERI: Initially, Victoria's Secret did no, you know,
traditional advertising.
In fact, Les Wexner did not believe in advertising
because his attitude was, you've got a showcase in the mall
with all these great windows
and you really didn't need to advertise.
It was Ed Razek who started that system,
and he got that working like a fine-tuned modern marketing machine.
He was, like, number two to Les Wexner, and they kinda worked hand-in-glove.
ED RAZEK: In a matter of months, we went from the idea of,
could we get on a radio program in a local market
to being on every national entertainment news program.
And I think that in the future, you're gonna have a combination of media
that includes every sophisticated
kind of extension that a brand can have,
and if you don't use 'em, it'll-- it will be at your peril.
You really have to have all the components.
♪
JAMES SCULLY: At the time, even though Victoria's Secret
was a very respectable company throughout the country,
and had a great image,
if you worked in fashion as a model,
um, it is not the booking you wanted.
If you were a Victoria's Secret contract girl, that basically meant
[chuckles] your Vogue days were over,
your high-fashion career was over.
It was basically where models went to die, but make a ton of money.
ALL: Hi, Santa.
- Can you blame me?
CINDY: In the earlier years,
it was kinda tough to get models
who were willing to model lingerie.
It wasn't easy, but we did it.
ED: Stephanie Seymour, who is now and was then
a very major international model,
started... working with Victoria's Secret.
I think that legitimized our, um, our brand and our business,
and allowed other girls to get into the business.
CINDY: The models were lending
their status to our brand.
- You know, it has helped me enormous. It has helped them.
I've been, uh, a good spokesperson for them and vice versa.
So, it's been a good-- It is very good team.
The '80s, and really, the mid-'90s, was a time when models had a name.
We were suddenly-- We were Frederique. We were Stephanie.
We were these supermodels,
and Victoria's Secret was very early on in saying,
"We're... stepping on this bandwagon."
NICOLE: Co-opting the formula from designer fashion
was... pretty brilliant
because it equated
panties and bras with high fashion,
and it does slowly serve to
raise Victoria's Secret profile.
GRACE NICHOLS: A couple of years ago,
Les presented the idea to all the CEOs
about considering a fashion show
as a part of the general business strategy and several of the brand personalities.
It really seemed that it was right for Victoria's Secret.
JAMES: What a phenomenon Victoria's Secret is
and how this catalog's become the thing
that either every man is dying to see on his coffee table,
or every woman, sort of, aspires to, you know, look that way,
or be, sort of, a Victoria's Secret woman.
And I think it'll be really interesting tonight
to see the actual catalog come to life.
I cast the very first Victoria's Secret fashion show,
and it was a totally bold idea to have a show for a lingerie brand
because there was nothing else like that at the time.
They saw it as a marketing tool because they thought
this is how we can get the face of our brand out there.
- Maybe 15 years ago, if a woman had a half a dozen bras
and a half a dozen pairs of panties,
she thought she was covered.
It was, it was basically the man's approach to underwear.
And, uh, and point of fact, that's not true anymore.
It's a very different business than it was just a few years ago.
MAN: I'm about to rehearse Beverly Peele,
which is a very exciting moment in my life.
[person laughs] She could probably rehearse me.
- You knew this is gonna be on Times Square? - Yeah, I just heard that.
- I didn't know that-- - What time are we on Times Square?
We're gonna be on Times Square, oh my god!
- How do y-- How do you feel, Ingrid?
How do you feel? You feel great?
VICTORIA BARTLETT: Back in 1995,
I was hired to do the first show for Victoria's Secret.
In the '90s, I was one of the top stylists.
I was working with Miu Miu,
I was working with Versace.
Victoria's Secret, for me, was this,
sort of, patriarchal company in the mass market.
I thought it was almost a paradox
that they asked me to come and style for it.
ED: Everything we said, it was a mantra.
This is a fashion business, a fashion brand,
and this is a fashion show to show our latest fashion.
[indistinct chatter]
♪
TERI: One thing that was really important
at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show
is that there were a lotta guys there because this was tits and glitz.
REPORTER: Okay, what brought you here? - What brought me here to this show
is the exact same thing that brought this guy here.
- Are you hosting the show?
- Lookin' forward to it, uh, since the moment I heard about it.
- And your intentions are purely innocent?
- Of course, I'm really here just for the cultural enrichment of it all.
REPORTER: Are you a fan of Victoria's Secret?
- Isn't every red-blooded man a fan of Victoria's Secret?
REPORTER: So many men.
I've never seen so many men at a fashion show.
ROBIN LEACH: I guess every person,
they, they dress their woman in Victoria's Secret
that they believe that their woman winds up looking like Frederique.
- The fashion show was very unique
because it wasn't a show where you're showing to buyers.
[indistinct]
♪
FREDERIQUE: If you use all the right elements,
what you get is a sensation, and that's what they did.
Victoria's Secret became itself something to know.
I think it was brilliant,
but it was definitely, for me personally,
quite exposing.
I was happy to leave, go home, and cry in a bathtub. [laughs]
And say, "God, I got that over with."
♪
BARRY LEVINE: Despite Les Wexner's incredible wealth
and incredible success,
Wexner was an individual running his huge company
out of the middle of Ohio.
This was far away from the movers and the shakers
and the social scene of New York.
MICHAEL GROSS: Back in the '80s, it was a great moment
for what was the tippy-top of American fashion.
And at the same time,
you had the arrival of an entire new billionaire class.
So, you could be a thug, like a Trump,
but you still, because of your money and your spending,
you could be part of nouvelle society.
♪
Wexner had the advantage of coming to New York astonishingly rich,
and almost immediately thereafter,
Wexner ends up buying Henri Bendel's.
SHARLEEN ERNSTER: I worked at Henri Bendel
in this jewel box lingerie section
where the most influential women in the world shop.
The announcement that we had been purchased
by The Limited Inc. was shocking.
- He wanted that New York cache,
and that was a way to buy into it.
- The city was, kind of, "Huh?" They were aghast.
- He invited Jackie Onassis to the christening of the store.
All the photographers were there.
This was a big paparazzi moment
because he wanted that respect
with New York society and high-fashion New York.
This was something that, obviously, was really important to him.
Anytime, when you see a socialite like that
paired with a retailer like Les Wexner,
it's understood that someone has written out
a very big check to their favorite charity.
♪
SARAH: Wexner is coming in from the Midwest
and he's intimidated by this New York society
that he can't quite dominate the way he can in Columbus.
And you can see how he might benefit from a translator,
or someone who can, kind of,
take his elbow and lead him into the right rooms,
and the right charities, and the right parties.
- This was about the time Jeffrey Epstein came into Wexner's life.
MICHAEL GROSS: Jeffrey Epstein was a college dropout
who somehow managed to get a job teaching
at the very prestigious prep school Dalton in New York,
hired by Donald Barr,
whose son was William Barr,
the Trump administration's Attorney General.
It was at Dalton that Epstein met Ace Greenberg,
who was a parent there.
Greenberg ran Bear Stearns, an investment bank,
and that was Epstein's next job, working for Bear Stearns.
Bear Stearns wasn't one of those white shoe Wall Street firms.
It was a rough-and-tumble streetwise place run by Jewish guys.
And it was at Bear that Epstein manifested a trait
that would be part of his career thereafter,
which was worming his way into the lives
of older, successful, influential Jewish men.
STEVEN J. HOFFENBERG: Epstein was, uh,
extraordinarily mesmerizing
and... could convince anything of anybody,
the master manipulator.
SARAH: After a time, Epstein develops
this cloud of suspicion about various misdeeds
around him at Bear Stearns,
and he's eventually forced out in 1981.
But importantly, Ace Greenberg opens the door
for Epstein to this world,
and that is... what really seals the deal for him.
BARRY: Jeffrey Epstein would eventually take on
as his key client Leslie Wexner.
When Les Wexner met Jeffrey Epstein,
he apparently remarked that Jeffrey Epstein was so exciting,
that Epstein was everything
that Les Wexner thought was lacking in... Ohio.
- Both Epstein, apparently, and Wexner, definitely,
were very smart men.
And each one must have fulfilled the need of the other.
Wexner had the money that Epstein was seeking,
and Wexner got from Epstein
the glamour and smoothness
that he was seeking.
And I'm not at all inferring it was a sexual need,
but there is something there.
- Wexner bought this fabulous townhouse, the biggest private house in Manhattan.
SARAH: It being the largest house in the city
strikes me as a, sort of, desperate move
because the biggest house is also a little gauche in some ways.
MICHAEL GROSS: Even with Epstein's help,
Wexner stayed an outsider in New York City.
He never became part of the cultural New York world,
or the fashion New York world.
This has happened time immemorial,
you know, the Midwest king of the hill comes to New York and discovers
that he's really just a pimple on New York's backside.
BARRY: So, at that point,
Jeffrey Epstein eyed that townhouse
and maneuvered to acquire it from Les Wexner.
- Wexner eventually sold it to Epstein,
and it wasn't until years later that there was a transfer of real estate deed.
- Epstein paid upwards of $20 million, uh, for the townhouse,
but there's no question that the property
ended up being worth so much more than he paid for it.
SARAH: After Epstein had managed to
navigate his way into Wexner's life,
Wexner did something that I've never seen in all of my years of reporting.
He granted full power of attorney to Epstein
and gave him unmitigated control over all of his assets,
20 of Wexner's companies,
19 trusts and different charitable foundations.
He was able to manage his real estate.
He managed his investments. He managed his businesses.
There wasn't a part of Wexner's empire that Epstein didn't have access to
and, and didn't have some ability to control.
And so, to give carte blanche to someone
the way he did with Epstein, is such a puzzle.
♪ tense music playing ♪
BARRY: Here was Jeffrey Epstein, who was obviously a conman
to anyone paying any attention.
I think the million-dollar question
is why a gentleman as brilliant as Leslie Wexner
could allow this guy into his life?
CINDY: Years later, when I heard
Epstein was involved in the business,
it struck me as odd
because Les was a micromanager
and someone who was involved in every aspect of the business.
I couldn't believe... that Les would let that happen.
Something was amiss.
SARAH: Epstein was at the first-ever fashion show,
and he even eventually found himself sitting near Wexner
at one of the later fashion shows.
It was something that he was able to use much to his advantage,
certainly, in his early years of predation
as a kind of calling card
that got him introductions where he wanted.
- I think retailing has a great future as, as long as you see it as entertainment.
And the internet is an important part of retailing,
an important part of the marketing, an important part of advertising.
- We tried to get onto your site a number of times today
and found that it was just an overwhelming experience,
not to watch the models, mind you, but to get to it.
- We've been handling very nicely the daily demand,
uh, up until the Super Bowl ad,
which generated a surge of a million hits.
♪ upbeat music playing ♪
ED: I think that's probably the most successful commercial,
maybe in the history of the Super Bowl.
I can't imagine that happening with anyone else.
I can't remember an incident ever where
a million people left their TVs during the game to go do something else.
MAN: It's all your friend's fault.
NICOLE: The brand really did, sort of, beat fashion to the punch.
Victoria's Secret... really understood
we're very hungry, as a culture, for beauty and beau-beautiful people,
and they just, sort of, fed us what we all wanted.
And so, the beauty pageant of the 1950s
became the Victoria's Secret Show of 1999... and on.
♪
MAN: I don't really look at fashion shows.
Just, you know, they're modeling lingerie.
That's why I was interested in it as a fashion show.
CINDY: Everyone tells a joke that
the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show crashed the web.
Uh, we only crashed our site, and we got it up and running very quickly.
MICHAEL GROSS: They used the crash to their advantage.
It was nothing but a stunt. It was a way to get headlines.
This is a problem for any marketer who, who depends upon the press.
You live by the press, you die by the press.
If you don't keep upping the ante,
you're not going to get the attention paid to you.
♪
JAMES: With the Angels, Victoria's Secret created
a whole sexier, more playful narrative.
I think people wanted to see something sexy.
And then all of a sudden,
it became, probably, the number-one booking
because you could start a career by being a Victoria's Secret Angel.
MICHAEL GROSS: One of the truisms of show business
is that corny can work.
And the wings were corny.
And yet, the press loved it,
the audience at the shows loved it,
and they worked like crazy.
And not only that, it caught the models' attention
because they competed like mad to wear those wings.
- It would become a huge thing every season about
who would be chosen to wear these.
Or who would get one of the few allotted wings.
- It's amazing for me to be part of the Angels Across America.
- Those wings were so heavy.
I almost gave them to another girl and then saw how good she looked in them.
I was like, "No, no, no."
ED: We're doing the fittings today.
The outfits have been in the works for several months now.
- Hi!
- Giving a girl her first wings is really a special experience.
MODELS: [echoing] Do you believe?
MODELS: [echoing] I believe in miracles.
MODELS: [echoing] I believe, I believe...
TODD THOMAS: The Angels with the wings
became a huge part of the iconography of the show,
and that started with a pretty basic concept.
MARTIN IZQUIERDO: The powers-that-be at Victoria's Secret
came to me for wings
because I think that they all wanted to create something big.
At first, I made preliminary sketches,
and they also saw samples of what the wings were that I had created
for Angels in America.
- Greetings, prophet.
The great work begins.
MARTIN: We had a preliminary conversation
determining the looks or the styles for each segment.
I showed them to Ed Razek, and to the stylists,
and, and ultimately, the models would see them as well.
Heidi always wanted the biggest wings in the history of the show,
and we gave them to her,
ones that were 10-feet, 12-feet tall.
I think, ultimately, I was lucky to be entrusted with this.
But, uh, well, I mean it was 10 years.
♪ dramatic music playing ♪
[crowd cheering, applauding]
I was influenced by movies, arts... musicals
from the '20s and the '30s, Busby Berkeley,
Picasso, Seurat, Chagall.
But after a while, the audience doesn't necessarily
want to keep seeing the same thing.
MODEL: Coming!
[indistinct yells, chatter]
- Take it off, take it off. - Take it off.
- Go, go, go, go, go!
- Alessandra! - Alessandra!
- Let's go.
STAGE MANAGER: Girls, we need more energy
and more smiles than that!
- The hat's falling down, guys. The hat is falling down.
No, no, no, she's gotta put it back on.
- Stop by 2:15, the breakdown.
[chatter]
LYNDSEY: Backstage, they did so many adjustments beforehand.
They-- The outfits were ready to go.
I think they faked adjustments on camera for the, uh, for the show.
[laughing] Like, they, they made it seem like
it was more hectic backstage than it actually was.
- Standing by with Behati. - Dangerous music with video.
- Okay!
STAGE MANAGER: In three, two, one. Go!
Go!
DOROTHEA BARTH-JORGENSEN: I thought it was fun to be part of it,
but I... feel like I was playing a game,
or something that wasn't really... real at all,
and wasn't very inspirational.
- We need Candice. - Three, two, one...
♪
TODD: The fact that the show made millions of people happy
and tune in is a phenomenon.
And there's another side of that, too, which is that, you know, there were people
that were kinda tortured by it, too,
by, you know, just the desire to participate
and the willingness to... submit
to whatever it took to, like, be a part of it.
♪
CINDY: Sometime in the spring or summer of '93,
an executive came into my office quite upset.
She said she had been informed
that a man was in New York portraying himself
as a recruiter for Victoria's Secret catalog models.
And I ask her if she knew his name,
and she said, "Jeffrey Epstein."
It was like, "Oh boy, this is trouble."
So, I asked this executive to call Les directly
and tell him what was happening.
She did... and Les told her
he would put a stop to it.
The point being that inappropriate behavior
was reported to Les
sometime in '93.
- In 1997, I filed a sexual battery report
on Jeffrey Epstein.
He worked for Victoria's Secret.
That's what he told me.
♪ ominous music playing ♪
♪