The reality star caused a stir — as always! — at the glamorous fashion event of the year
Kim Kardashian caused a stir at the Met Gala once again.
The reality star, 43, graced the 2024 Met staircase in yet another head-turning ensemble. Putting her signature spin on the theme of “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” Kardashian appeared in a sheer Margiela by John Galliano dress with a lace train featuring leaves and floral accents.
Though her icy bleach-blonde hair perfectly accented the silver in her dress, she played down the rest of the look by wearing natural waves and subtle makeup, including a shimmery silver eyeshadow. She also bundled up with a simple gray shawl.
Of course, the most eye-catching part of her ensemble was her silver corset, giving her a drastically tiny waist. At one point, Kardashian appeared to get help from attendees to make her way up the steps as a result of the constraining dress.
This year’s Met Gala theme ties into the upcoming Costume Institute exhibit that will feature approximately 250 items — including 15 significant pieces such as an 1877 Charles Frederick Worth silk satin ball gown — that span more than 400 years of history.
Kardashian has a history of making headlines at the Met Gala. She made her debut in 2013 while pregnant with her first child North West and walked the red carpet in a custom Givenchy by Riccardo Tisci dress created out of floral printed jersey, along with perfectly matched gloves and shoes. She attended the Gala as a plus-one to her then-boyfriend Kanye West, who wore a simple suit by Givenchy by Riccardo Tisci.
The look sparked an influx of memes, some of which compared the dress’s material to a couch. In her 2019 installment of Vogue’s “Life in Looks” video series, Kardashian admitted that she was upset by the internet’s response to her look.
“I was crying the whole way home, because I just couldn’t believe it,” she said.
In 2014, Kardashian went for a more traditional, Old Hollywood-inspired look. Alongside West in a black tux, she wore a blue strapless Lanvin gown with a black waistband and thigh-high slit.
The fashion mogul channeled Cher at the 2015 Gala in a sheer crystal-embroidered Roberto Cavalli gown with feather detailing.
In 2016, Kardashian and West wore coordinating silver ensembles inspired by the theme Manus x Machina. The star went for a metallic Balmain look, which she described as “blingy, sexy, robot.”
The Skims founder kept things pared down for the 2017 Met Gala, where she wore a simple in an off-the-shoulder Vivienne Westwood Couture corset dress. She also notably went jewelry-free. Months prior to the event, she was the victim of a robbery in Paris and later told Ellen DeGeneres she didn’t know if she could wear real jewelry again.
In 2018, Kardashian glittered in a gold chainmail dress by Versace featuring embroidered crosses, leaning into the theme of “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.”
She accessorized with double cross necklaces and amped up the drama with extra-long hair and smokey eye makeup.
In 2019, Kardashian made a splash in a custom Thierry Mugler dress that was created to convey the designer’s vision of her as “this California girl stepping out of the ocean, wet, dripping.” The outfit also featured a dramatic corset, which she later admitted made it hard for her to breathe.
“I have never felt pain like that in my life,” she told the WSJ Magazine for a digital cover story in July 2019.
At the 2021 Met Gala, Kardashian shocked spectators by wearing a black Balenciaga look that covered up her entire body. The custom ensemble featured a long-sleeve turtleneck bodysuit worn under an oversize T-shirt dress with long pleated train. She accessorized with jersey boots, jersey gloves and a mask that covered her face — but she still wore a full face of makeup beneath it.
Perhaps her most controversial Met Gala look yet, Kardashian appeared at the 2022 event in a dress previously worn by Marilyn Monroe — the very same one that the movie star wore in 1962 to serenade President John F. Kennedy with a sultry rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
The star faced backlash both for the extreme diet she underwent to fit into the dress (she revealed she lost 16 lbs. in three weeks) and for wearing a historically significant gown. There were later allegations that the dress was damaged after she wore it, though Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, which owned the dress and lent it to Kardashian, denied this.
The star took glam to another level at the 2023 Met Gala, where she wore a custom Schiaparelli haute couture design featuring a draped skirt and top made from more than 50,000 freshwater pearls and 16,000 crystal pearls. The gown took one-dozen artisans 1,000 hours to craft.
The look was an homage to Karl Lagerfeld, the late designer that was honored at the 2023 Gala. “I wanted pearls,” Kardashian told Vogue. “I thought, ‘What is more Karl?’ You know, the iconic Chanel pearls is what I always thought of. So we wanted to just be dripping in pearls.”
