An Ode to the Queen
But back then, Palo Alto was still just a California suburb within a larger suburb. And the new lingerie store was the American vision of an English boudoir. Raymond chose to call the brand Victoria’s Secret as a reference to Queen Victoria. The Queen was the figure of a notoriously repressed era, and Raymond’s goal was to evoke the kind of sophistication and decency associated with such Victorian-era boudoirs.
Victoria’s Secret Catalog 1979. Source: Flickr
But he also wanted to allude to the “secret” that lies beneath the clothes. The name Victoria’s Secret suggested a sort of veil of respectability that had to be pulled over the “secrets” that were hidden underneath. Okay, so the name was perfect. But the story was anything but…