You’ve probably absorbed the same story about Victoria’s Secret for years now — a once-dominant mall brand losing relevance, closing stores, and chasing shoppers who’d moved on to newer, trendier names. That narrative gets repeated so often in casual conversation that it has come to feel like settled fact, the kind you don’t think twice before repeating yourself. New numbers released by the company itself this month tell a noticeably different story.
Sales climbed 10 percent, and profit beat guidance
Victoria’s Secret & Co. reported second-quarter sales of $1.611 billion, up 10 percent from a year ago. Comparable sales rose 9 percent, the number retailers use to track growth beyond new store openings. That’s not a company merely holding steady. It’s one posting real, measurable growth — probably more than you’d have guessed.
Adjusted operating income reached $124 million, ahead of the company’s own guidance of $90 million to $100 million for the quarter. If you’d bet on another rough quarter based on the headlines you’d seen, you’d have lost that bet. The gap between forecast and reality is exactly what casual chatter about the brand tends to miss.
Growth spread across stores, online and overseas
Growth wasn’t concentrated in one place. North America store sales rose almost 9 percent. Direct-to-consumer sales — the website and app you might use yourself — grew 8 percent. International sales climbed 20 percent, the fastest pace of the three.
So whether you shop in a mall store, order online from your couch or buy through an international partner, you’re part of the same broad rebound, according to the company’s second-quarter results. That’s not one channel quietly propping up a brand you assumed was fading — it’s growth showing up everywhere you’d look.
Fewer discounts, more full-price shopping
Part of what’s driving the improvement is pricing discipline. The company leaned into regular-price selling instead of the deep, frequent promotions that once defined its stores, trading short-term traffic for healthier margins, according to its second-quarter earnings report. You may have felt this shift without naming it.
If you’ve noticed fewer blanket sales the last time you walked past a Victoria’s Secret storefront, you weren’t imagining it. That’s a deliberate strategy, not a sign shoppers stopped showing up. It isn’t that the brand quietly gave up on discounting; it’s that it stopped needing discounts to get you through the door.
Expect louder marketing this fall
CEO Hillary Super told investors the results reflect strategy execution, not a fluke quarter. “Our Path to Potential strategy is working, our brands are stronger and more relevant, our customer file is growing, and we are gaining market share as product, brand identity, storytelling and execution are all working together,” she said in the company’s earnings release.
For you as a shopper, that translates into more marketing this fall. Expect expanded campaigns, a returning Fashion Show and holiday activations the company says are coming. You’ll likely notice the brand getting louder in your feed and your inbox before the year is out, not quieter.
48 new stores opened, more than closed
Store activity backs up the sales numbers. The company opened 48 stores and closed 38 during the quarter, a net gain that left it with 1,430 stores in total as of early August. That’s growth, not retreat, whatever a single closed storefront near you might suggest.
A single mall closing doesn’t tell you the whole picture, and neither does one new location opening near your own neighborhood. Zoom out, and the company is still opening more doors than it’s shutting — a detail easy to miss if you’re only counting what you personally pass.
A raised forecast for the rest of 2026
Encouraged by the quarter, the company raised its full-year 2026 guidance. It now expects net sales of $7.100 billion to $7.180 billion and adjusted operating income of $560 million to $590 million, both above what it had projected earlier this year.
None of this means every headline about a struggling mall brand was wrong, or that a company’s story only ever moves in one direction. It isn’t that the turnaround erases years of real decline; it’s that the numbers, for now, are moving the other way. The next time you walk past a storefront that looks different than you remember, you’ll at least know why the change is there — and you don’t have to take anyone’s outdated assumption over your own two eyes.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Womens Overview editors prior to publication.