Victoria's Secret reportedly has reportedly hired Brazilian model, Valentina Sampaio as their first ever openly transgender model. The lengerie company which has been under much scrutiny and crticism in the fashion industry for its lack of 'inclusivity' which came unde fire when the company’s Chief Marketing Officer, Ed Razek, made the comment “Shouldn’t you have transsexuals in the show? No. No, I don’t think we should. Well, why not? Because the show is a fantasy,” has, in less than year hired Valentina Sampaio as their first transgender model.
Valentina, who will be making her VS debut shared a photo of herself at a shoot with 'VS Pink' which she captioned, diversity.
"The news of Valentina was confirmed by fellow Brazilain midel Lais Ribeiro, who tweeted , 'First transgender to shoot with VS! This make me so happy! â¤ï¸ÂÂÂÂÂ" Victoria's Secret Angel and fellow Brazilian model Lais Ribiero tweeted on Saturday''.
In November last year, VS came under fire for when Razek made the infamous comment that no transsexual should be on the show. "Do I think about diversity? Yes. Does the brand think about diversity? Yes. Do we offer larger sizes? Yes," he said. "It's like, why doesn't your show do this? Shouldn't you have transsexuals in the show? No. No, I don't think we should. Well, why not? Because the show is a fantasy. It's a 42-minute entertainment special. That's what it is. It is the only one of its kind in the world, and any other fashion brand in the world would take it in a minute, including the competitors that are carping at us. And they carp at us because we're the leader'' he had then told Vogue magazine.
The comment faced huge backlash following which Razek later apologised saying that is was insensitive on his part. "My remark regarding the inclusion of transgender models in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show came across as insensitive," he said in a statement posted by the brand’s Twitter account."I apologize," he continued. "To be clear, we absolutely would cast a transgender model for the show. We've had transgender models come to castings...and like many others, they didn't make it...But it was never about gender. I admire and respect their journey to embrace who they really are."
/newsnation-english/media/agency_attachments/2024-07-23t155806234z-logo-webp.webp){kind=logo}
Follow Us/newsnation-english/media/post_attachments/images/2019/08/05/valen-1000.jpg)