Miss World has crowned its 2026 winner! On Saturday, Sept. 5, the pageant hosted the grand finale of the 73rd competition in Vietnam, where women from around the world traveled to compete for the international title. The organization crowned Joheirry Mola of the Dominican Republic.
Elisabeth Reynes of Spain was first runner-up in the competition, and Taanusiya Chetty of Malaysia was second runner-up.
Miss World shared a photo of the three women posing together on Instagram following the pageant, along with a video of Mola smiling and waving as she sat on a flower-adorned throne, surrounded by other contestants.
This year’s Miss World competition recently made headlines during the preliminaries when Ugandan delegate Elle Muhoza made a powerful fashion statement. The contestant wore a custom look by designer Keesha Abdallah titled “The Layers of Life,” which was meant to represent the seven layers that doctors cut through to perform a C-section.
The gown featured layers of white, yellow, pink and red fabrics, modeled after an illustration Abdallah found of the C-section layers: skin, fat, fascia, rectus muscles, peritoneum, uterus muscle and the amniotic sac.
“The concept was inspired by the layers encountered during a C-section and, more broadly, by the extraordinary journey of bringing life into the world,” the designer explained on Instagram. “Each color and layer was chosen to represent a stage, a texture, or a transition within that story — not to represent a particular race.”
Last year’s winner, Suchata Chuangsri, made history when she became the first-ever Thai winner of the Miss World pageant, taking home the title for the 72nd version of the pageant on May 31, 2025. She was present at Saturday’s 2026 pageant to crown Mola.
After her own win, Chuangsri, 21, accepted her tiara from Miss World 2023, Krystyna Pyszková of the Czech Republic.
Chuangsri won out of a field of 108 contestants in the pageant, which last year was held in India’s southern Hyderabad city. Hasset Dereje Admassu of Ethiopia ended up first runner-up in the competition.
The Thai pageant winner used her title to campaign for breast cancer awareness after a health scare she had when she discovered a lump in her breast at age 16.
Source: Graphic Showbiz
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