We Speak Fashion

Joan Smalls Brings Supermodel Command Back to the Victoria’s Secret Runway

Published

1 hour ago

October 29, 2026

Joan Smalls returned to the Victoria’s Secret runway on October 18, 2026, at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California, walking in a vibrant blue and chartreuse lingerie look paired with sweeping metallic green wings. The Puerto Rican supermodel first walked the show in 2011, appeared in six consecutive shows through 2016, and has now walked in each edition since the show’s 2024 revival, making 2026 her third consecutive appearance in the relaunched era.

Smalls’ rise began after she moved to New York in 2007 and signed with Elite Model Management, later moving to IMG Models in 2009. Her breakthrough came in January 2010, when Riccardo Tisci booked her as a Givenchy exclusive for his spring/summer haute couture show. That single casting launched her onto the runways of Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Versace, Louis Vuitton and Balmain, and into the pages of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and GQ.

In 2011, the same year as her Victoria’s Secret debut, she became the first Latina model to represent Estée Lauder as a global beauty ambassador. In 2012 she was named Model of the Year at the Style Awards and ranked the world’s number one model by Models.com, a position she held until 2014, when the site designated her a “New Supermodel.” In 2013 she entered Forbes magazine’s highest-paid models list, ranking eighth with estimated earnings of more than $3 million.

Her Victoria’s Secret history also carries a notable footnote: despite years on the runway and several campaigns for the brand, she was never officially made an Angel. That distinction has never slowed her. Across more than a decade at the top of fashion, Smalls has built a career on runway command — the walk, the presence, the ability to carry a theatrical look without letting it carry her. On the 2026 runway, in blue and green wings, that experience was the point: a veteran showing exactly why she has been booked, season after season, for fifteen years.

We Speak Fashion

Apple Martin Makes Her Runway Debut for Chloé at Paris Fashion Week

Published

7 minutes ago

October 29, 2026

We Speak Media

Apple Martin is officially a runway model. The 22-year-old made her runway debut on October 1 at Paris Fashion Week, walking for Chloé’s spring/summer 2027 show at the historic Paris Observatory. She stepped onto the catwalk in a bohemian white eyelet dress with balloon sleeves, a plunging neckline and a dramatic lace collar, her hands tucked into the pockets of the flowing design, finished with light brown platform shoes.

For Chloé, the casting was a natural next step. Martin is an official face of the house and starred in its summer 2026 campaign earlier this year, so creative director Chemena Kamali’s decision to put her on the runway moved an existing campaign relationship onto fashion’s biggest stage. The collection leaned into the romantic, ethereal codes Kamali has made her signature: lace, lingerie-inspired details and flowing silhouettes, balanced with heavier tailoring.

The debut arrived almost exactly one year after Martin launched her modeling career. She first appeared as the face of Self-Portrait’s resort campaign in October 2025, then fronted the London label’s spring 2026 campaign in January. Campaign work for GapStudio followed, and she has since landed a Vogue spread and a turn in the magazine’s Beauty Secrets series. It is a fast build by any standard, assembled campaign by campaign rather than through runway seasons.

Martin, the daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, graduated from Vanderbilt University in May with a degree in law, history and society, and spoke in a February Vogue interview about switching her focus from law to entertainment. Modeling is the first chapter of that plan taking shape in public.

A first runway is a threshold every model has to cross, and doing it in Paris, for a house she already represents, in one of the season’s most watched shows, is about as strong a crossing as the industry offers. Apple Martin came to Paris as a campaign face. She left it as a runway model, with the whole SS27 season as her calling card.