LOS ANGELES
Sunday night's biggest live entertainment event is not on a network, a streamer or a pay-per-view card. It is on YouTube, it is free, and it comes with wings. The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show — the runway spectacle that began in 1995, vanished for six years, and returned in 2024 — stages its third comeback edition tonight in Los Angeles, the city the brand itself called “the birthplace of glamour, stardom, and icons” when it announced the move in July. For international viewers, the timing is part of the story: a Sunday-evening show in California is a Monday-morning show in London, Berlin and Sydney, and the brand has built this year's global livestream with that audience in mind.
When it starts, and where to watch
The main runway presentation begins at 7:30 p.m. Eastern / 4:30 p.m. Pacific on Sunday, October 18. The Pink Carpet pre-show, hosted by Scott Evans and Zanna Roberts Rassi, starts half an hour earlier at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT. The full event streams live for free on Victoria's Secret's official YouTube channel and across the brand's Instagram and TikTok accounts, and select AMC cinemas in the United States are screening it live. The show is staged at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, under creative director Adam Selman, with styling by Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, hair by Guido Palau and makeup by Dame Pat McGrath.
The road back matters for understanding tonight. The original show ran for more than two decades before it was shelved, then returned in New York in 2024 and again in 2025, when WNBA star Angel Reese became the first professional athlete to walk the runway and Jasmine Tookes opened the show while pregnant. This year's move west is the brand's first Los Angeles fashion show since 2007 — a deliberate homecoming to the city of Angels, staged, fittingly, by a brand whose most famous models are called Angels.
The music: an all-women lineup
Four acts perform, and all four are women: Megan Thee Stallion, Tate McRae, Megan Moroney and KATSEYE. It is the third all-women music lineup since the show's return, following bills topped in past years by the likes of Missy Elliott, Cher and TWICE. KATSEYE arrive with real momentum — their album WILD debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — and Megan Thee Stallion is expected both to perform and to walk. In the modern format, the performances are woven through the runway segments rather than separated from them, which is why the musical casting gets nearly as much attention as the model casting.
Who is walking
Gigi Hadid was the first name confirmed, announced back in July in a video in which she leans out of a car window: “Get in, Angels, we're going to L.A.!” She is joined by Adriana Lima, the brand's longest-serving Angel; Candice Swanepoel; Ashley Graham; Anok Yai; Alex Consani; Paloma Elsesser; Amelia Gray; Abby Champion; Liu Wen; Elsa Hosk; last year's opener Jasmine Tookes; and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, back on this runway after more than a decade away. More than 15 returning models had been confirmed in the run-up to the show.
The night's most personal storyline belongs to Barbara Palvin. The Hungarian model, an Angel since 2019 who first walked this show in 2012, confirmed her return in a playful brand video on Friday — pushing a stroller carrying an “Angel on Board” sign, announcing “I'm back,” and asking for quiet so as not to wake the baby. Palvin and her husband, actor Dylan Sprouse, welcomed their first child, a daughter named Sylvie, in September, announcing the birth on September 28. Sprouse posted his own tribute ahead of the show: “Proud of my missus, jumping right into the VS Fashion Show post birth. Built different.” Six weeks after giving birth, Palvin walks tonight.
The Fantasy Bra, and a brand-new Angel
Two reveals are built into the running order. The first is the return of the Fantasy Bra, the jewel-encrusted centrepiece that was once the show's signature set piece and has been absent for years. Victoria's Secret confirmed on October 15 that the Fantasy Bra is back for 2026, created in partnership with jeweler Jacob & Co. — fashion-watch coverage puts its runway return among the night's most anticipated moments, with the wearer kept as a show-night surprise.
The second reveal is a person. This year the brand ran a nationwide open casting call for a new face, drawing more than 100,000 participants, and filmed the search as the docuseries Angels Among Us. The winner is announced during tonight's show and walks as the brand's newest Angel, with an IMG Models contract as part of the prize. It is the clearest statement of what the revived show is trying to be: part heritage spectacle — the wings, the Fantasy Bra, Lima and Swanepoel — and part open door.
Whether the formula keeps working will be measured the way everything is measured for this show now: in livestream numbers, in Monday's clips, and in whether a Sunday-night runway in Los Angeles can still stop the scroll. The carpet starts at 4 p.m. Pacific. Follow our entertainment coverage for the morning-after recap.
