Solange Omon, 21, walked the Victoria’s Secret runway in Los Angeles on October 18, 2026, in golden wings, as the company’s newest Angel. She had come through a nationwide casting contest that drew more than 100,000 applicants. Within days she was answering people who said she should not have won.
“I understand this was a competition. Everyone had their favorite,” Omon said. “You are allowed to be disappointed that your favorite didn’t win. You don’t have to be happy that I won. But this is no longer about who you wanted to win. This is racism!!!”
Omon was born in Cameroon and was living in Maine and attending college when the contest, documented in the series Angels Among Us, began. She learned in Chicago that she had made the top 10. The group travelled to New York for runway training, photo shoots and fittings. The field narrowed to three: Omon, Andreina Martinez and Tatyana Tinsley. The prize was the Angel title and a modeling contract with IMG Models.
Before the contest she worked as a nonprofit program coordinator. She helped Black and immigrant teenagers with job applications, networking and climate change education, and in an earlier role connected people aged 16 to 24 with mentors, educational support and community resources.
She did not write about the backlash as something that had happened only to her.
“I wanted to speak about this because this isn’t only personal to me,” she said. “I’m a Black woman, but there are so many Black girls and women who experience things like this every day.”
On paper she was the least experienced of the three finalists. A nonprofit program coordinator from Maine who had never modeled professionally is the one wearing the wings, and the argument against her arrived the same week she put them on. She answered it in public, at 21, in her first days in the job, which is not the safe thing to do with a new contract.
“I’m happy, I’m proud, and nothing can take this joy away from me.”
