Organizers reintroduced the Victoria's Secret Fantasy Bra to the runway after a six-year absence, selecting a model whose profile extended well past the event itself. Kylie Jenner, who built her beauty brand from a foundation in reality television and commands an Instagram following of around 380 million, was chosen for the role.

Jenner, who was 29 at the time, walked the runway in a sheer mini skirt, clear platform heels, and white feathered wings, with the Fantasy Bra serving as the centrepiece of the ensemble. At the centre of the piece sat a 75.54-carat radiant-cut Fancy Vivid yellow diamond, with 4,410 natural stones set around it — a composition the label chose to introduce alongside its comeback.

Assembling the piece required a team of 15 artisans and consumed upward of a thousand hours of work, with the completed object weighing just under four pounds. Priced at $50 million, the Fantasy Bra stands $35 million above the highest amount any earlier iteration commanded.

Adam Selman, who holds the chief creative officer title at Victoria's Secret, attributed the decision to return the bra to viewer appetite, noting that requests to bring it back had ranked among the most frequently heard ahead of the current show, which the creative team had built around the concept of fandom energy. Discussion among the team centred on landing on a format that would be both watchable and theatrical.

Selman described Jenner as a "cultural powerhouse" whose reach stretches across fashion, television, and broader pop culture rather than being tied to any single domain — a quality he said mirrors the brand's own positioning. The pairing was described as an intentional contrast — placing the Fantasy Bra on a performer with broad cultural reach and an established fanbase, rather than a conventional choice, to deliver what audiences had been asking for.

Framing the bra as a surprise to attendees, Selman turned to Jacob Arabo of Jacob & Co. for a diamond count that matched the piece's ambition. Arabo told interviewers that Victoria's Secret had become embedded in American consumer life and had altered how people approached the lingerie market, with the brand coming to represent self-assurance, individual expression, and ideas of beauty.

Victoria's Secret brought the proposal to Arabo, whose roster of clients stretches across a broad array of public figures, and he took it on without delay — remarking afterward that the brand had transformed an ordinary undergarment into something closer to fine jewelry, a creative territory that had gone largely unexplored by others in the industry up to that point.

Describing the piece as a wearable work of high jewelry designed to function as a bra, Arabo explained that he had reviewed earlier iterations of the concept to identify where it could be taken further, noting that the collection brought the worlds of fashion and high jewelry into dialogue with each other. Those 4,400-plus stones were shaped into seven distinct forms — angel, heart, pear, marquise, oval, radiant, and round brilliant cuts — and secured through four setting methods chosen to draw out the maximum light and fire from each one.

The Fantasy Bra has appeared on the runway across more than thirty years, gradually becoming a recurring fixture of the annual show. Launched in 1996, the style made its public debut through a print magazine advertisement featuring Claudia Schiffer, carrying a price tag of $1 million.

Among the pieces drawing particular attention over the years: Heidi Klum carried the Millennium Bra into the 1999 show, a jewel-laden creation valued at $10 million, while Gisele Bündchen took the runway a year later in the Red Hot Fantasy Bra, priced at $15 million. The series closed out in 2018 when Elsa Hosk wore the Atelier Swarovski Fantasy Bra — the final edition before the hiatus — with a price tag of $1 million attached to it.

Arabo walked through the construction process in some depth, noting that the absence of any fabric meant every structural decision had to balance wearability against fidelity to the original design — a tension made all the more demanding by the piece being composed entirely of gold and diamonds. Arabo explained that positioning each curve, stone, and gold element required precision so the finished piece would sit comfortably against the body.

Selman described the purpose of the undertaking in straightforward terms, saying it had been created with the fanbase in mind — a goal that had driven the team to take Jenner's precise measurements and make repeated fitting adjustments, given that dimensions recorded on paper do not always translate directly to how a garment performs once worn.