Bella Hadid opened the 2026 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show wearing a small botanical emergency. Flowers climbed her wings, colour spilled across the lingerie, and a lime-green skirt refused to sit still. At Sony Studios in Los Angeles, subtlety was not on the guest list. Good. Nobody tunes in to watch a wing behave.
The show kept swapping one kind of excess for another: giant petals, metallic claws, striped satin, feathered architecture. The women did not disappear beneath it. They made the set pieces look like accessories. Here are the looks that made the runway feel wonderfully overcrowded.
Gigi Hadid wore what looked like two mirror balls learning to fly: silver discs dripping pink light behind a barely-there blue-and-pink look. Kylie Jenner answered with actual money. The returning Fantasy Bra is valued at $50 million, set with 4,410 natural diamonds around a 75.54-carat yellow centre stone. White feathers rose behind her like a very expensive alibi. The bra was the headline; Kylie knew exactly how to wear one.
Joan Smalls did not get soft-focus wings. Hers curled outward in green and purple metal, closer to a dangerous plant than a halo. Liu Wen carried gold feathers at her hips, turning a floral drape into something half angel, half court dress. Same runway, two entirely different definitions of taking up space.
Adriana Lima made electric-green lace look like an old signature signed with a new pen. Anok Yai turned herself into a pink ruffle explosion and somehow kept her face the sharpest thing in frame. Alex Consani’s striped satin robe swallowed half the runway, then gave it back with a shrug. There is no single way to be an Angel when the styling leaves this much room to play.
Alessandra Ambrosio held out an acreage of striped satin like she had just stolen the curtain from the stage. That is the trick these returning Angels know: a huge prop only works when the person wearing it looks more in control than the prop.
Paloma Elsesser arrived in a full-on pink flower storm. Elsa Hosk went for corset laces and puff sleeves, all boudoir with a little bite. Doutzen Kroes let chiffon billow out behind her. Three shades of romance, none of them particularly interested in whispering.
Ashley Graham’s flower-covered wings stretched so wide they could have booked their own seat. She wore pink lace under all that garden-party engineering, but the point was the stance: shoulders square, eyes forward, no attempt to make herself smaller for the frame.
Candice Swanepoel supplied the languid floral train. Precious Lee brought baby blue and a skirt that moved before she did. Barbara Palvin kept it flirtatious in a pink, scribbled little dress. After the giant wings, these close-up looks were a reminder that a hemline, a colour, a walk can still do the work.
The soundtrack had its own runway ambitions. Tate McRae performed in red corsetry and wings against a wall of sparks. Megan Thee Stallion, Megan Moroney and KATSEYE joined the all-women performance lineup. When the singers are dressed to compete with the Angels, calling this a lingerie show feels almost rude. It was a pop spectacle with a very good fitting room.
For one night, the 2026 show made the old equation—lingerie plus wings—look almost too simple. The wings had personalities. The cast had bigger ones. And every time the runway threatened to settle into one idea of sexy, somebody walked out dressed like an entirely different fantasy.
