When Kaya Wilkins walked Chanel's Resort 2027 show in late April, the headline wasn't that a pregnant model appeared on a major runway. It was that Chanel went looking for one. Wilkins, a New Jersey–born, Norway-based model, musician and actor, told Vogue she got the call only days before the show and was "quite surprised as I'm five months pregnant." Her second-trimester belly was in full view beneath a black-and-white tweed suit. That intentionality is what separates this moment from decades of accidental, concealed or one-off appearances—and it's the lens through which I think the whole inclusivity debate should be read.
Chanel's Resort 2027 Show: A New Vision of Motherhood on the Runway
The details matter here, because they're unusual. Wilkins wasn't booked despite her pregnancy; she was booked because of it. "Matthieu and Anita [Bitton], the casting director, were looking for someone pregnant, so I was quite lucky to have a little bump on me," she told Vogue hours after stepping off the runway. She described her first show for the house—complete, in her words, with her own "world's youngest runway model"—as "a really nice experience being around a lot of creative, really chill people."
Marie Claire's Halie LeSavage framed the casting as part of a deliberate presentation: Wilkins modeled the Cruise 2027 collection with her bouclé jacket fully unbuttoned, highlighting her five-month bump beneath a black bralette. Nothing about the styling suggested concealment. And she wasn't alone this season at Chanel—model Sora Choi made a mid-runway pregnancy reveal shortly after, cradling her midsection in a flapper-inspired white dress, a moment that, per LeSavage, "lit up industry accounts."
Timeline: Pregnant Models on High-Fashion Runways
To judge whether Chanel's casting is a turning point or a headline, you need the sequence. Below is the documented history of pregnant models on high-fashion runways and adjacent stages, drawn from the reporting above. Read it as a frequency chart: the instances are decades apart, then cluster.
| Year / Show | Model | Designer / Brand | Significance / Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994, Prêt-à-Porter film | Ute Lemper | Fictional designer Simone Lo (Robert Altman film) | Walked as a pregnant Eve, belly exposed—cited as a radical moment in fashion films, though this was cinema, not a live runway show. |
| 2014, Chanel Paris Fashion Week | Ashleigh Good | Chanel (Karl Lagerfeld) | Closed the show seven months pregnant, arm-in-arm with Lagerfeld; the passage doesn't specify how highlighted the pregnancy was. |
| 2016, Victoria's Secret Fashion Show | Irina Shayk | Victoria's Secret | Walked at five months pregnant in a fringe-covered ensemble; her pregnancy was not openly announced at the time of the show. |
| 2018, Savage x Fenty show | Slick Woods | Savage x Fenty | Walked while in labor, giving birth hours later—a highly publicized, unique instance. |
| 2018, New York Fashion Week | Lily Aldridge | Various NYFW designers | Walked openly pregnant, a shift from her concealed 2011 Victoria's Secret appearance; a personal choice to display pregnancy. |
| 2025, Victoria's Secret show | Jasmine Tookes | Victoria's Secret | Walked while pregnant; the reporting doesn't detail the visibility of her bump. |
| 2026, Copenhagen Fashion Week (Fall 2026) | Sora Choi | Niklas Skovgaard | Revealed her pregnancy mid-runway; Copenhagen is noted as one of the only markets consistently including pregnant women on its runways. |
| 2027, Chanel Resort | Kaya Wilkins | Chanel (Matthieu Blazy) | Intentionally cast while five months pregnant, bump displayed—a deliberate choice within a wider inclusivity push. |
The pattern the chronology reveals is telling. Before 2014, the most famous pregnant runway walk was fictional. From 2014 through 2025, real appearances occurred—but often concealed, unannounced or framed as exceptional spectacle. Only in 2026 and 2027 do we see deliberate, displayed castings clustered together, at Copenhagen and now twice at Chanel.
