Victoria’s Secret Has Hired Its First Transgender Model
Valentina Sampaio will star in the new VS Pink campaign
Photo: Getty
It’s been confirmed that Victoria’s Secret has hired its first transgender model. The news comes almost a year after the Chief Marketing Officer of the company, Ed Razek, said it's unlikely transgender and plus sized models would be right for the brand.
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Photo: Getty
22-year-old, Valentina Sampaio, took to Instagram to share the news that she was the brand’s latest recruit. Uploading a photograph of her sitting in a dressing gown, she captioned the shot: “Backstage click @vspink”. She followed with another post of her urging her followers to “never stop dreaming”.
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Fans were quick to congratulate the model and actress including a number of a-listers. Victoria’s Secret angel and fellow Brazilian, Lais Ribeiro, took to Twitter and said: “First transgender to shoot with Vs! This makes me so happy!”. While Orange Is The New Black’s Laverne Cox wrote under Sampaio’s photograph: “wow finally”.
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Recently, there’s been a number of changes underway at the lingerie giant. Last month veteran angel, Shanina Shaik, confirmed that the high-profile annual Victoria’s Secret show, which sees millions of people around the world tune-in, wouldn’t be going ahead this year. "It's something I'm not used to because every year around this time I'm training like an angel," she told the Australian Daily Telegraph.
Photo: Getty
This article originally appeared Harper's Bazaar UK.