KEY TAKEAWAYS
- •Anitta performed her official FIFA World Cup 2026 song 'Goals' — a three-way collaboration with K-Pop star LISA and Nigerian Afrobeats artist Rema — at the Los Angeles opening ceremony on June 13
- •The custom H&M Studio look was developed in collaboration with Anitta, stylist Janelle Miller, and the H&M Studio team over the course of the brand's year-long partnership
- •The look opens with a hooded boxer-style entrance cape and reveals a white wraparound crop top with sheer sleeves, white rhinestone-adorned chaps, a crystal-embellished belt with elongated chains, and a rhinestone harness
- •Design references blended Brazilian Carnival energy, superhero-uniform structure, and maximum stage sparkle — with movement as a non-negotiable functional brief
- •The Los Angeles ceremony was the third of three FIFA World Cup 2026 opening ceremonies, with Katy Perry and Future also headlining the event
Anitta emerged from the wings at the FIFA World Cup 2026 Los Angeles opening ceremony on Friday evening wearing a hooded cape that swept to the ground, rhinestones everywhere, and the energy of someone who understood exactly what the moment required. The Brazilian pop star was performing 'Goals' — her official World Cup track with K-Pop star LISA and Nigerian Afrobeats artist Rema — in front of an audience that included the US, Canadian, and Mexican host nation crowds and a global broadcast audience counted in the hundreds of millions. She was wearing H&M. Custom H&M. And it looked like it belonged on the largest stage in the sport.
The look was built over the course of H&M's year-long partnership with Anitta, developed specifically for this performance in collaboration between the H&M Studio team, Anitta, and her stylist Janelle Miller. The brief was clear: match the explosive energy of the performance, honor Brazilian heritage, and work with a body that dances for the entirety of a stadium set. Sparkle was not optional. Movement was not optional. The entrance had to be a moment.
The Los Angeles ceremony was the third of three FIFA World Cup 2026 opening events, with the tournament beginning in earnest that same evening. Katy Perry and Future were among the other headliners. Anitta was the one with the cape. The staging choice — a hooded entrance cape modeled on what a boxer wears walking into an arena — was the evening's clearest single image, and the H&M Studio team built everything beneath it to sustain the impact once it came off.
The Look That Opened the World Cup
The cape came first. Hooded, floor-length, designed to carry the theatrical weight of an arena entrance before the costume beneath had been revealed. Anitta was specific about what it needed to do: when she walks out on stage, she wants it to be a moment. The cape delivers the theatrical and almost epic feeling she described — the kind of entrance that tells an audience something significant is about to happen before a note has been played.
The boxer reference is intentional and precise. A fighter walking into an arena in a hooded robe is one of sport's most studied pieces of visual theatre — the moment before the performance begins, when the crowd has already invested in the outcome. Using that reference for a World Cup opening ceremony performance has a specific logic: it is sport as performance, performance as sport, the lines between them collapsed into a single entrance.
Beneath the cape, the look is built in white with rhinestone detail running across every element. A wraparound crop top with sheer sleeves and multiple cutouts provides the fitted base layer. White chaps — the kind worn over trousers, covering the leg while leaving the seat open — are festooned with rhinestone-adorned cargo pockets. A crystal-embellished belt with elongated chains and a matching rhinestone harness complete the construction. The whole thing moves with the wearer because it was designed to.
Stylist Janelle Miller was direct about the performance stakes: since this is a massive world stage, the look had to match the moment. That is not a styling brief that allows for restraint. The rhinestone harness and the chaps and the crystal belt are not excessive — they are proportional to a stage visible from the back row of a stadium, broadcast to screens across multiple time zones.
Anitta has fronted multiple H&M campaigns across the year-long partnership, which meant the collaboration's DNA was established before the World Cup commission arrived. The look is not a one-off created under pressure. It is the full expression of a working relationship between a performer and a brand that has already found its shared register.
Anitta's entrance in the hooded H&M Studio cape — its proportions and drama modeled on the boxer's walk-in — was the Los Angeles opening ceremony's defining single image.
What Anitta and Her Stylist Said About the Collaboration
“When this epic moment came up for Anitta to perform, it made total sense to create something together with H&M for it. I love that their fashion is accessible to everyone. That matters a lot to me.”
Anitta was clear about what she wanted the look to communicate before she described a single garment: joy, passion, pride. When you think about the World Cup, those are the words she reaches for. The look was built to deliver all three from the moment the cape appeared, through the reveal, and through the full duration of the performance. The fact that it is H&M — a brand available to the fans watching — was not a compromise. It was the point.
Miller's design brief matched the performance stakes directly. 'Since this is such a massive world stage, I knew that the look had to match the moment,' she said. That framing — the look must match the moment — is the kind of brief that produces a rhinestone harness and a boxer cape rather than a dress. It produces something built for scale and for memory rather than for the editorial page. The World Cup opening ceremony is not an editorial. It is a once-in-a-generation staging moment. The look was made accordingly.
How to Wear the Stadium Performance Aesthetic
WHY IT MATTERS
The stadium performance aesthetic that Anitta's World Cup look represents has a specific relationship to the soccercore trend that has been driving fashion since the tournament began. Soccercore, at street level, is about taking sporting references into everyday dressing — jersey over a bubble skirt, tracksuit with heels. The stadium performance aesthetic is the same impulse taken to its logical extreme: sporting references fully committed to, embellishment at maximum, movement at the center of every construction decision.
For those dressing for a World Cup viewing party or a stadium attendance rather than a performance, the translation is more modest but the principle is the same. The cape entrance energy reads as a dramatic outerwear piece over a simpler base. The rhinestone detail reads as a crystal-embellished belt or bag over a white bodysuit and cargo trousers. The chaps reference reads as a white flared trouser with embellished pocket detailing. The H&M Studio custom pieces are not available for purchase, but the aesthetic they articulate is entirely portable.
What This Look Says About Where Performance Fashion Is Going
The 'Goals' performance look arrives at a moment when the relationship between performance fashion and accessible retail has been under sustained examination. Beyoncé's Renaissance and Cowboy Carter era stage costumes, Taylor Swift's Eras Tour wardrobe, the Super Bowl halftime show looks — these are all events that generate fashion conversations that extend well beyond the performances themselves. Anitta's H&M Studio collaboration adds something specific to that conversation: the accessible brand custom commission, where the prestige of the moment is matched not by a luxury house but by a high-street brand that happens to make something worthy of the stage.
Anitta said the surreal quality of the moment was not lost on her: she is so happy and honored to represent her country in something this big, and feeling good in what you wear changes everything. That is not a quotation designed for a press release. It is the actual argument for why performance fashion matters — not as a separate category from the clothes people wear, but as the most amplified version of the same thing. When you love your look, everything changes. The World Cup stage is just the largest available demonstration of a principle that holds everywhere else as well.
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Claire Whitmore has spent more than a decade tracking the pulse of global fashion, from the ateliers of Paris to the showrooms of New York. She covers emerging designers, heritage houses, and the business forces quietly reshaping what luxury means today.
