# Adam Selman on Reimagining the Victoria's Secret Angel Wings for 2026 > The designer behind this year's show talks about updating one of fashion's most recognizable costumes without losing what made it iconic in the first place. - Source: Life Channel - Canonical URL: https://lifechannel.one/article/adam-selman-on-reimagining-the-victoria-s-secret-angel-wings-for-2026 - Author: Sienna Blackwood - Section: Money & Life - Published: 2026-10-21T13:37:26.799Z - Updated: 2026-10-21T13:37:26.799Z - Tags: Victoria's Secret, Adam Selman, Fashion Show, Runway, Angels --- Few costumes in fashion carry as much built-in recognition as the Victoria's Secret wings, which makes redesigning them for a new era a job with very little room for error. Designer Adam Selman, known for maximalist, texture-heavy work that treats clothing as spectacle as much as garment, took on that job for the brand's 2026 show, and his approach leaned less toward reinvention than toward amplification. The wings themselves remain the throughline, oversized and feathered in the way audiences expect, but the pieces built around them this season push further into embellishment than in past years. Crystal-covered bras with fringe detailing, delicate chain and stone accents at the wrist, and sheer layered skirts all work together to make the wings feel like the centerpiece of a full look rather than an accessory bolted onto a more basic outfit. ## Updating an icon without erasing it That balance, familiar but elevated, is the trickiest needle to thread when a costume has this much cultural weight attached to it. Change too much and it stops being the thing people recognize; change too little and the show reads as nostalgia rather than a current fashion moment. Selman's version of the wings leans toward craftsmanship as the update, keeping the silhouette intact while raising the level of detail and material quality noticeably higher than earlier iterations of the costume. The crystal work in particular signals where his attention went. Rather than treating embellishment as surface decoration, the pieces this season use stone placement to catch the runway lighting in a way that makes the whole look feel engineered for the moment it hits the stage, not just the photos taken afterward. ## A costume built to outlast the night What makes the wings durable as a design object, season after season, is that they were never meant to be subtle. Selman's take leans into that fully, treating the show less like a lingerie presentation and more like a full costume production, with the wings as the anchor every other decision gets built around. Whether this version becomes the one people remember a few years from now is impossible to predict from a single show, but the intent behind it is clear: keep the recognizable shape, and let everything surrounding it carry the weight of feeling new. --- Originally published by Life Channel. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://lifechannel.one/article/adam-selman-on-reimagining-the-victoria-s-secret-angel-wings-for-2026.