LOS ANGELES
Some runway debuts are assignments. This one is a homecoming — to a show she grew up watching, in the city she comes from, in front of the models she studied on repeat as a girl. On Sunday night, October 18, in Los Angeles, Natalia Bryant makes her Victoria's Secret Fashion Show debut.
Bryant, 23, is the eldest daughter of the late Kobe Bryant and Vanessa Bryant, and a graduate of the University of Southern California. She has been building a modeling career in the open for years — campaigns, editorials and a first runway in Milan. Sunday night is different in scale and in symbolism: the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is the runway she watched every year as a little girl, and now she is in the cast.
“Seriously so over the moon”
Speaking to Page Six Style backstage, Bryant did not try to play it cool. “It feels amazing — I'm seriously so over the moon. I can't wait,” she said. “I used to watch the show every year — since I was a little girl.”
That childhood viewing turned into preparation. Bryant studied old shows to get ready for her debut — in her words, she had them “on repeat, really trying to get into that mindset. And it's crazy, because now I'm in the room with some of the OGs. Angels are among us!”
One Angel in particular is on her list. Her favorite model is Candice Swanepoel. “Candice has always been my favorite. I haven't met her yet — fingers crossed,” she told Page Six Style. Swanepoel is among the returning faces in this year's cast, alongside Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima and Gigi Hadid — which means Bryant's debut walks her directly into the lineup she grew up studying.
Yoga, stretching, and a pump-up playlist
Where the mythology of this show once ran on grueling pre-show regimens, Bryant's Sunday morning was deliberately calm. She did yoga and stretching that morning, and played pump-up music to get into the right headspace. Her playlist, as she described it to Page Six Style, mixed Dua Lipa and Beyoncé with Tate McRae — who is not just on the playlist but is one of this year's performers, giving Bryant's warm-up a direct line to the show she was about to walk in.
As for what she will actually wear down the runway, that stayed a backstage secret. Her look was not revealed ahead of the show. The one hint she offered, via Parade, is that it is “very pink” — a fitting note for a model whose relationship with this brand started on its younger, pinker side.
A debut years in the making
Sunday is a debut for the main show, but it is not Bryant's introduction to the company. She previously starred in campaigns for Victoria's Secret's Pink brand, the label aimed at younger customers, so the Fashion Show walk is a graduation within a house she already knows — from Pink campaigns to the main runway, in her hometown.
Her runway credentials predate this weekend, too. Bryant's runway debut came for Versace at Milan Fashion Week in 2023, one of fashion's most demanding stages, and she has continued to build a portfolio across campaigns and editorial work while finishing her degree at USC. Parade's backstage coverage placed Sunday's show at Sony Pictures Studios in Los Angeles — a film-studio setting for a USC film graduate making the biggest walk of her career so far, a few miles from where she grew up and went to school.
That Los Angeles layering is part of why this debut has drawn attention beyond the fashion pages. The Bryant name is woven into this city's sporting and cultural history, and Natalia Bryant has been careful to build a career that stands on its own work — a degree, a Milan debut, campaign after campaign. Sunday night, those two stories share a runway: the family name Los Angeles knows, and the model Los Angeles is about to watch earn hers in a new arena.
How to watch Sunday night
The show itself is built to be watched live, and this year it is easier to find than it has ever been. Per Page Six's guide to the show, the pink carpet begins at 7 p.m. ET, and the show streams at 7:30 p.m. ET — 4:30 p.m. in Los Angeles — live on the brand's YouTube channel for the first time. The show is also playing in select AMC theaters, turning a runway stream into a big-screen, go-with-friends event, and the night continues with an after-party on TikTok Live at 8:45 p.m. ET.
The cast around Bryant mixes the returning Angels — Ambrosio, Lima and Hadid among them — with this year's newcomers, and the performances include Tate McRae, whose music was playing in Bryant's ears that morning. It is, by design, a show that blends the brand's history with its next generation. Bryant's walk sits exactly on that seam: a debut, years of watching and studying behind it, in front of a hometown crowd.
“Just go out there and have so much fun”
Bryant's own advice to this year's other newcomers, shared backstage, may be the best summary of her approach to the night: go out there, have fun, be yourself. It is easy advice to give and harder advice to take on a live-streamed runway with the fashion world watching — but Bryant arrives with the preparation done, the playlist played, and the childhood dream directly in front of her.
On Sunday night in Los Angeles, the girl who watched the show every year stops watching. She walks it. Very pink, by her own hint, and — by every quote she gave backstage — exactly where she has wanted to be since she was little. Angels are among us, she said. As of Sunday night, she is one of them.
More entertainment and Southwest coverage is on Previously news and the Vegas desk — and for the weekend's other big stage out west, see our coverage of NASCAR in Phoenix.
