By Gabriela Afanador
Tuesday 20, October 2026
Photo via @Kyliejenner on Instagram
Jewelry is one of my secret hobbies. I love researching it and learning how a piece is made, where the stones come from, and the story behind each design, and over time it has become one of my favorite ways to look at fashion. Whatever anyone thinks of this year’s Victoria’s Secret show, I want to set all of that aside and focus on one beautiful piece that came back this year after a long absence, the Fantasy Bra. It returned to the runway on October 18 for the first time since 2018, made in collaboration with the jeweler Jacob & Co., and Kylie Jenner wore it for her Victoria’s Secret debut, styled with a silver miniskirt and large white feathered wings, and she looked beautiful in it.
For anyone who grew up watching the show, the Fantasy Bra was always the moment everyone waited for. The tradition started in 1996, when Claudia Schiffer wore the first one, a piece valued at one million dollars, and in the years that followed it grew into a meeting point between lingerie and fine jewelry. Houses like Mouawad and Damiani covered the bras in diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds, and in the early 2000s the values climbed to twelve and fifteen million dollars, with Heidi Klum and Gisele Bündchen wearing some of the most famous designs. Being chosen to wear it became one of the biggest honors a model could receive at the brand. The last Fantasy Bra appeared in 2018, worn by Elsa Hosk, just before Victoria’s Secret paused its traditional show, and even when the runway returned in 2024 and 2025, the bra stayed away. That is why seeing it again this year felt so special, and it made sense that the brand chose Jacob & Co., the New York house founded by Jacob Arabo, which is also celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year. Adam Selman, the chief creative officer of Victoria’s Secret, explained that he chose Arabo because he designs for the person wearing the piece, and you can feel that idea in every part of the bra.
The Diamonds
The bra is set with 4,410 natural diamonds that weigh 1,373.39 carats in total, and the centerpiece is a story of its own. Hanging at the center of the chest is a yellow diamond of 75.54 carats, graded Fancy Vivid by the Gemological Institute of America, which is the strongest level of color a yellow diamond can receive. Natural yellow diamonds get their color from tiny traces of nitrogen inside the stone, and finding one this large with such an intense, even color is very rare. It is cut in a radiant shape, a cut that keeps the clean, cropped corners of an emerald cut while adding many more facets, so the stone throws back much more light and its yellow looks deeper and brighter than it would in a simpler cut. Two round white diamonds sit beside it, and just above it the initials of Jacob & Co. are spelled out in diamonds, a small signature that ties the piece directly to the house that made it.
Photo via @Jacobandco on Instagram
Around that yellow center, Jacob & Co. placed 91 large white diamonds, each one between five and almost nineteen carats, all of them very white and very clean, with almost no visible inclusions. They come in six different shapes, and among them is the Angel Cut, a new diamond cut the house created to mark its fortieth anniversary and that appears here in public for one of the first times. Using so many different shapes was a deliberate choice, because each cut reflects light in its own way, so as the body turns, some stones flash sharply while others glow more softly. The rest of the diamonds fill the spaces in between, held by different kinds of settings, from small claws to thin metal rims and tightly set pavé, each chosen for where the stone sits and how much it needs to move. At the back, a heart shaped diamond hangs among strands of diamond fringe, a detail you only notice as the model walks away. Jacob Arabo has said that he wanted to create “the most expensive Fantasy Bra ever made, but value alone was never enough,” and that for him the piece was really about the diamonds, the light, and the movement. The bra has been estimated at around fifty million dollars, more than three times the value of the most expensive Fantasy Bra before it, which Gisele Bündchen wore in 2000.
Photo via @Jacobandco on Instagram
What fascinates me most is the way it was built. For the first time in the history of the Fantasy Bra, there is no fabric at all. Every part is made of gold and diamonds, and yet it still had to behave like real lingerie, following the curves of the body and staying comfortable to wear for the length of a runway walk. The idea comes from a Jacob & Co. collection called Rare Touch, which explores how precious metal can move with the body the way fabric does, and this bra pushes that idea further than any of the house’s jewelry before it. The cups were shaped in white gold that curves inward toward the center, just like a real bra, and the frame underneath was given thin, softened edges so it could rest gently against the ribs instead of pressing into them.
Photo via @Jacobandco on Instagram
The process began with a simple pencil sketch, which then became a full size model made of flexible cardboard so the team could test the shape and proportions on a body form before touching any gold. After several rounds of changes, the design was turned into a digital model and divided into about 3,218 small parts, with the exact position of every diamond mapped out in advance. Each part was cast in white gold using lost wax casting, one of the oldest techniques in jewelry making, where a wax model of each piece is covered in a mold and then melted away to leave space for the metal. The pieces were then cleaned and polished by hand and assembled section by section on a bust form. The diamond fringe was made of tiny settings linked one by one, so each strand could swing freely while the stones stayed secure, and finally every diamond was set and adjusted by hand to close the gaps between them, so the surface reads as one continuous field of light. In total, fifteen artisans spent more than a thousand hours bringing it to life.
The Close
When you take the time to learn how this piece was made, the Fantasy Bra stops being only a moment of spectacle and becomes a real work of high jewelry, the kind that carries months of planning and the patience of many hands behind its shine. What I appreciate most is that Jacob & Co. thought about the woman wearing it as much as about the stones themselves, building something that could move, bend, and rest on the body with the softness of lingerie while being made entirely of gold and diamonds. That balance between engineering and beauty is what makes jewelry feel alive to me, and it is exactly what I love discovering when I research a piece like this. Seeing the Fantasy Bra come back after eight years, made with so much care and worn so beautifully by Kylie Jenner, felt like watching a much loved tradition return in its most thoughtful form yet, and for someone who loves learning the story behind every stone, it was a real joy to follow.