Tragedy of the would-be Victoria's Secret lingerie king

The company’s founder imagined it as a luxurious, languid Victorian drawing room with silk drapes, dark wood and oriental rugs.

But today lingerie chain Victoria’s Secret is rather more 50 shades of pink.

Think glossy hot-pink walls and magenta armoires bursting with exquisite lacy treasures and it’s clear the multi-billion dollar brand has moved on in the four decades since it was started in 1970s’ California.

And that’s not only true of the company’s stores, of which there are more than 1,000 including a flagship in London’s Bond Street that opened in 2012.

Every November since 1995 the company has hosted the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, the world’s most extravagant catwalk spectacle, which last year alone cost a reported £7million to produce.

Normally held in cities such as Cannes, Miami and New York with performances from stars including the Spice Girls and Rihanna, this year the annual fashion gala is heading to London for the first time.

Tickets for the Earls Court event on December 2 are selling for £10,000 apiece.

In return you will get to admire luxurious, gem-enhanced undies being paraded by some of the world’s most physically desirable women to the music of some of the world’s topselling artists.

And for everyone else there is the free upload on YouTube which is viewed annually by millions.

The giant angel wings worn in the show have become emblematic of the brand and explain why super models – including Cara Delevingne and Alessandra Ambrosio – who promote the sumptuous but affordable lingerie and sleepwear are known as Victoria’s Secret Angels.

Last year’s show saw them in spectacular underwear in satin, silk and lace adorned with Swarovski crystals.

There are also eyecatching, one-off fusion pieces known as “fantasy bras” that are designed to draw attention to the brand.

These artworks blend delicate fabrics with precious gems and are the centrepiece of each show.

Last year’s was a £6million creation modelled by Candice Swanepoel featuring 18-carat gold as well as numerous diamonds, yellow sapphires and an outrageous 52-carat ruby.

The perfect present, perhaps, for a Russian oligarch’s wife or girlfriend. Becoming an Angel is a passport to fame and fortune.

It’s surely no coincidence that 16 of the 21 models who feature in Forbes’s 2014 model rich list including Miranda Kerr and Heidi Klum have joined this elite group.

But for all the opulence and extravagance that will be the hallmark of the 2014 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show the company has humble origins.

It was one man’s vision which was to end in the most tragic circumstances.

Behind the razzle-dazzle of diamonds, beautiful mannequins and sexy marketing, lies a sad tale of lost dreams and fatherless children.

Roy Raymond was a 30-year-old married father-of-two with an MBA from Stanford who experienced his eureka moment while attempting to buy a romantic present for his wife in San Francisco in the mid-1970s.

He walked into a department store to buy a thoughtful gift of lingerie only to find ugly, floral-print nightgowns and glowering sales assistants who made him feel a pariah for perusing the shelves.

Harsh fluorescent lights made the items on sale look even less appealing.

Bemused by the experience Raymond mentioned it to a few friends and soon developed a winning idea.

He would use his business acumen to create a lingerie store that would make men comfortable buying lovely intimate gifts for their wives and girlfriends.

He envisaged a look that was part gentleman’s club, part boudoir, and chose the name Victoria because his home had been built in the Victorian style and he thought the name embodied genteel elegance.

Adding Secret was a stroke of genius.

It implied that beneath a classy exterior lay treasures to be discovered.

Raymond borrowed £25,000 from the bank and the same again from his in-laws and in 1977 he and his wife Gaye leased a space in a shopping mall in Palo Alto, San Francisco. “I remember making the velvet curtains for the first changing rooms,” said Gaye in a recent interview.

“We used a lot of silk and natural fibres in our lingerie and it was very high quality.”

But where Raymond turned out to be less than gifted was in valuing the worth of his idea.

He had created a unique brand at a time when underwear was still seen by the majority as something functional and utilitarian.

Sexy lingerie was regarded as an occasional treat – something to be splashed out upon, perhaps only on a wedding night or other special event.

Victoria’s Secret made it more ubiquitous, put the fun into functional, and sales soared, especially as Raymond had the idea of producing lavish catalogues that could take the goods directly into people’s homes to be perused at their leisure (this was of course long before the internet).

For the first year turnover was more than £300,000.

Within five years there were three more stores in San Francisco and by 1982 there were annual sales of more than £2.5million.

But although customers loved the brand they were still mainly men and the company was soon facing bankruptcy as it was not shifting enough stock.

It was then Leslie Wexner stumbled across one of the appealing branches of the small, family-run chain.

At the age of 40 Wexner was a self-made man worth £25million following his realisation in his 20s that women were ready to dump their dresses and start buying casual wear.

In 1963 he had opened a shop for women that sold only sportswear under the name the Limited.

By 1977 he had nearly 200 stores, his fortune was assured and he was on the hunt.

In 2010 he recalled the moment he discovered Victoria’s Secret. “It was a small store and it was brothel Victorian with red velvet sofas.

"But there was very sexy lingerie and I hadn’t seen anything like it in the US.”

However there were flaws keeping women away, not least the advertising which looked a little red light district for middle-class tastes.

In short the shop was a turnoff to women.

Wexner realised repositioning the brand would bring in a whole new audience and change the company’s fortunes.

It was then Raymond made his fatal mistake.

Rather than selling a percentage of his company to Wexner he sold the entire operation for £600,000 in a desperate attempt to pay off creditors (it was incorrectly reported as £2.6million at the time).

“My husband Roy had spoken to Les Wexner a few times about working together but ultimately Roy felt he couldn’t share the decision- making and was happier getting out completely,” explained Gaye.

His mistake was to prove so emotionally and financially costly that it is cited in business literature and was referred to in 2010 Facebook movie, The Social Network starring Justin Timberlake, as a cautionary tale.

“He sells the company to Leslie Wexner and the Limited. Happy ending, right?” says Timberlake’s character to the actor playing Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook.

“Except two years later the company’s worth $500million (£300million) and Roy Raymond jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge.”

This is exactly what happened. Raymond was never able to recapture his initial success.

While the company he founded had stores popping up all over the United States and beyond as Wexner successfully tempted working women to buy sexy lingerie for everyday use, Raymond failed to get any of his subsequent ventures off the ground.

His high-end children’s retail and catalogue company My Child’s Destiny was the final straw.

In 1986 Raymond filed for bankruptcy having lost £650,000.

He and Gaye lost two homes and their cars and the stress was so great that in 1993 they divorced.

This was the same year that Victoria’s Secret became the biggest lingerie retailer in America.

In September that year Raymond jumped to his death off the Golden Gate Bridge, leaving behind his two devastated teenage children.

“It’s so sad,” said Gaye.

“He was young, creative, really a brilliant businessman but he suffered setbacks and couldn’t seem to bounce back from them.

"Roy and I used to have our regrets about how much it had changed from our original vision.

"Yet they’ve done a great job making it a commercial success."