What’s sexy in China? Women buying lingerie spurn Victoria’s Secret for homegrown brands

Even as US intimate wear giant grows in China, women in leading cities such as Shanghai are rejecting its branding and buying more feminine Chinese lingerie

Local lingerie makers understand better what the sophisticated younger Chinese customer wants – comfort and a more unisex look – a store boss says

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Atelier Intimo is among the Chinese lingerie brands sold at Xinlelu, a multibrand lingerie store in Shanghai. Its owner, Yilei Wu, says: “The most important thing for foreign brands that come to China is to understand Chinese ideas of ‘sexiness’.”

Published: 7:30am, 23 Aug 2019Updated: 11:14am, 23 Aug 2019

It has been just over two years since Victoria’s Secret hosted its first fashion show in Shanghai and opened a flagship store in the city’s Xintiandi shopping district.

The shop’s dramatic entry into China as a bricks-and-mortar retailer marked a big shift for China's lingerie industry, and a major win for Victoria’s Secret, whose popularity in the US market has since faltered.

Back in the US, consumers have indicated the unwavering image of sexiness that Victoria’s Secret has been projecting for four decades is no longer going to cut it. Instead, women have been demanding inclusivity and body positivity, both in lingerie brands’ merchandising decisions and their marketing strategies.

Companies like Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty and ThirdLove, among many others, have brought wider ranges of sizes and more diversity to the arena.

Model Du Juan in a campaign for Chinese lingerie brand Neiwai.

In China, though, Victoria’s Secret’s is claiming a growing share of the country’s burgeoning lingerie market, one that is expected to be worth more than US$64 billion by the end of 2022, according to business consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. One B. Riley Financial analyst told Business of Fashion in December 2018, that China, where young consumers have only recently become more open-minded about public displays of sexuality, holds the “biggest potential” for the brand.

One of China’s own rising darlings of the lingerie industry, Neiwai, could hardly be more different to Victoria’s Secret, and its message to women, that “this lingerie is for yourself”, would probably resonate with many of those in the US who say sexiness should not be defined by what a man wants from a woman.