The big reveal of the 2026 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show came about three-quarters of the way through the extravaganza.
It came after Bella Hadid had strutted out in stilettos, a bejeweled bra with matching panties and wings made to resemble a pointillist garden, like some sort of Seurat-inspired boudoir mirage. After Megan Moroney, in baby pink marabou wings, had serenaded a section featuring supermodels as sexy flower fairies and Tate McRae had writhed around in a crimson corset and matching stockings amid a sea of similarly writhing women in crimson lingerie.
It came after the “Pink” section, with Katseye as naughty schoolgirls and Trinity Rodman in sequined hot pants and a push-up bra. (Also, oddly, a lot of puppy dog handbags and puppy dog charms, because, apparently, we are no longer stereotyping young women as sex kittens and are now stereotyping them as … sex puppies? Progress!)
And the unveiling came with a lot of dramatic backlighting to build anticipation. Then, finally: ta-da!
The Fantasy Bra: a $50 million creation by Jacob Arabo of Jacob & Co. featuring a 75.54-carat vivid yellow diamond amid 4,410 white diamonds, modeled by Kylie Jenner, with her own set of unicorn-like wings and a wisp of a sheer miniskirt, for modesty. Or at least the suggestion of it.
It was the first time a fantasy bra, once the centerpiece of the show, had been seen on a Victoria’s Secret runway since 2018.
As such, it was the final variable in a return to form for Victoria’s Secret that has been taking shape over the past two years. First, the brand brought back the runway, which was canceled in 2019 as ties between Les Wexner, then the company’s owner, and Jeffrey Epstein, were exposed, and then revived in 2024). Then it brought back the Angels, who were retired in 2021 in favor of a woman-focused collective, then unretired two years ago. It even brought back Gisele Bündchen, the most famous Angel of all, who made a cameo video languorously reclining on her sofa in little lacy nothings before this year’s show. (There were rumors that she was going to walk the runway, but a broken foot just beforehand seemed to put an end to that.) And it brought the show back to Los Angeles for the first time in nearly 20 years.
But in bringing back the Fantasy Bra, the brand’s leaders weren’t just revealing an extravagant new piece of intimate couture. They were revealing just how much we have reverted to pre-#MeToo definitions of sexy and how little change has actually occurred, despite all of the soul-searching and existential crises of the early 2020s about how a brand that put women on display like dream dolls of the bedroom may have contributed to a culture of sexual harassment and abuse. Amid all of the hooting and catcalling for Jenner, including by her boyfriend, Timothée Chalamet, and her mother, Kris Jenner, both sitting in the front row, that disappearing idea may have been the most transparent look of all.
It’s almost as if the past seven years didn’t happen.
After all, VS may position the show as an expression of self-confidence and joy. The chief executive, Hillary Super, and Adam Selman, the creative director, may talk about giving women ownership of their own bodies, and there may be a variety of those bodies on display, with Nicole Kidman cheering on from the front row. But there’s no getting away from the reality that the VS show is perpetrating a very specific Vargas girl-Playboy tradition of sexy.
One that is all about the legs! And the boobs! And the bottom! It’s cloaking the promise of transgression in the trappings of the cherub, then putting it on display for everyone to see.
According to Selman, this is all in the service of what the VS customer wants. VS decided to bring back the Fantasy Bra because fans were asking for it, he said. He christened this year’s show, which also included a performance by Megan Thee Stallion, “Fandemonium.” And it’s clearly working: The company’s share price has surged this year.
So maybe the whole bustier-’n-knickers babe look is most women’s dream, as it clearly was most men’s. By reverting to these old gender stereotypes, VS is reverting to a time when “sexy” was defined by the male gaze and catering to it. The company may have changed its stock market ticker listing to VSXY from VSCO in June to reflect its new mission, but there is nothing particularly new about this idea.
Or maybe what this is about is a nostalgia for a time when we could pretend that this way of presenting women was just lighthearted fun and didn’t contribute directly to a culture that enabled their objectification and depersonalization — even though we know that such a time is as much a fantasy as the fantasy bra. Watching the VS show after the national conversation prompted by the crisis at Cornell is a bit like entering the twilight zone. Though it does go with another national conversation, one in which men are men and women are women and you can tell by how they dress.
But here’s the thing: Victoria’s Secret may make undergarments, but they are still garments. It is still a fashion brand. And fashion is at its best when it gives people the thing they didn’t know they wanted: the thing that offers them a new, powerful way to be themselves in the world.
Wouldn’t it be incredible if, rather than simply reviving the past and resorting to sexy clichés, Selman and co. managed to think of a new way to communicate physical agency and unfetter the body? If what everyone saw on the VS runway wasn’t what they were expecting but a whole new idea about lingerie entirely?
Maybe that’s the real fantasy. If they could pull it off, this particular fashion form might actually take wing.
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