I thought lingerie was supposed to be sexy.

But can a lingerie company's image be too sexy?

Sharen Turney, CEO of Victoria's Secret, apparently thinks so. And she has plans for the Columbus, Ohio-based retail chain to take it down a few notches.

That's the gist of her comments during a telephone call last week with industry analysts.

Here's the context of that phoner: Victoria's Secret profits tumbled 12 percent in the last quarter of 2007, with sales falling 8 percent during the same quarter at stores open at least a year. Total sales at its 1,000 stores in 2007 were down 2 percent from 2006, and first-quarter earnings this year are expected to miss projections.

When sales start to slide and profits begin to plummet, many companies react by trying to reinvent themselves. Some decide to return to their origins, going "back to the basics" and the things that made them successful in the first place.

Ms. Turney's assessment of what's going wrong at Victoria's Secret is interesting: "We've so much gotten off our heritage -- too sexy. And we use the word sexy a lot and really have forgotten the ultra-feminine."

She has a point. Go to the store's Web site, type "sexy" in the search field and 677 items register. Consumers don't have to be hit over the head with "sexy" in every other product name: Very sexy perfume, Very sexy bras, So sexy hair care products, "Sexy little nothing" panties, ad nauseam.

Advertising can promote sexy without trying so hard. A photo can speak volumes. And store design can feature understated luxury rather than a boudoir-like ambience in some boutiques that borders on brothel.

Ms. Turney also suggested that the fashion and beauty brand has gotten too young by chasing a younger audience with products such as the popular Pink line of loungewear and lingerie aimed at college-age women.

"I feel so strongly about us getting back to our heritage and really thinking in terms of ultra-feminine and not just the word sexy and becoming much more relevant to our customer," said Ms. Turney. "We will also reinvent the sleepwear business and focus on product quality. Our assortment will return to an ultra-feminine lingerie brand to meet her needs and expectation."

Well, exactly which "her" is she talking about? The single career woman? The middle-aged wife and mother? The college coed? How does a comfortable, figure-enhancing bra or a silky lace negligee not meet a need? How is ultra-feminine different from sexy?

There's something rather knee-jerk about Ms. Turney's solutions to the label's profit problems. Perhaps she deems it worth the risk to abandon a large and significant portion of clientele and to focus on bringing back those she suggests have been so turned off by the brand's direction that they've taken to buying their bras and panties elsewhere.

Ms. Turney's concerns about overly sexy vs. ultra-feminine seem more about semantics and branding issues than product quality. What's wrong at Victoria's Secret may be more a problem of promotion than product.

Everybody wants to feel sexy. Sexy isn't smutty or vulgar, and Victoria's Secret isn't devolving into the type of cheesy campiness that characterizes Frederick's of Hollywood's brand of sex appeal.

It's interesting that Ms. Turney spoke of getting back to the brand's heritage. The fantasy behind the label is that "Victoria" lived in London and was manor-born. This suggests a woman of privilege and sophistication who dons luxurious slips and modest, well-made bras as opposed to a middle-class sorority girl in Kansas who favors lacy thongs and whimsical pajama bottoms.

In reality, Victoria's Secret was founded in San Francisco in 1977 by a guy named Roy Raymond who conceived a comfortable, embarrassment-free place for men to shop for lingerie for their women.

At a time when pushing everything from coffee and dog food to automobiles and cell phones is about being sexy, it's odd to hear a lingerie maker talk about becoming less sexy.

Victoria's Secret can't shed its sexy image without scrapping the popular annual fashion show broadcast on TV and the Internet. With its mix of some of the world's most famous -- and sexiest -- supermodels and numerous celebrity attendees, the event reaches millions of people and may be the company's best marketing tool.

If the retail chain is determined to reposition itself, it might succeed by keeping its sexy offerings but talking less about them. Curb the ubiquitous be-sexy-very-sexy verbiage and let the images speak for themselves. They do that very well.