The breathing lessons and secrets of the corset that cinched Kim into a 19inch human hourglass at the Met Gala

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual Costume Institute Benefit – also known as the Met Ball – is billed as the best-dressed night of the year, a $75,000 (£60,000) per ticket extravaganza showcasing the great, the good and the wonderful come together to outdo each other on the red carpet.

The only priority is to attract attention. And if there is one person who has mastered the art of it, it is Kim Kardashian.

When she hit the red carpet on Monday night in a metallic silver Maison Margiela dress, designed by John Galliano, with a pleated gray shrug across her shoulders, the internet quickly opined that grandma wanted her cardigan back.

The mother of four, once famous for her curvaceous figure, showed off an impossibly slim waist

“It’s the wildest night of my life in a garden and I just ran outside and grabbed my boyfriend’s sweater and threw it on… my hair is all messed up,” Kim somewhat bizarrely explained her interpretation of the dress code of host Dame Anna Wintour from: ‘The Garden of Time.’

Much more shocking than the vest, however, was Kim’s impossibly small waist. Shrunk to such limited proportions, she gave new meaning to the term “speaking out of breath.” Even Ozempic for weight loss couldn’t compete with the waist thinning ability of her corset dress.

Based on an archival design from Galliano’s 1997 ‘Mata Hari’ couture collection for Christian Dior (the house Galliano helmed between 1996 and 2011), the dress was made with a new ‘filigrading’ technique, using silver-plated lace with chain links it was connected and decorated with crystals. The dress took more than 1,000 hours to make.

The corseted dress, which took more than a thousand hours to make, was crafted using a process known as filigrading, which uses silver-plated lace connected with chain links and embellished with crystals.

Kim Kardashian wore a dress with a corset at the 2019 Met Gala, designed by Thierry Mugler

Although the 1997 original was designed to look like an elegant version of a harness, and appeared on the catwalk in a shorter style without a corset, this probably didn’t provide enough of a ‘wow’ moment for Kim. By adding a wasp waist of such extraordinarily small proportions — experts say about 18 inches — she ensured all eyes were on her even as she delivered a low blow to the body-positive movement.

Whether it matters that many of the comments were negative, one Instagram user asked, “Where did you put all your internal organs?” – is a moot point for Kim, a woman with form when it comes to suffering for her art.

At the 2022 Met Gala, she was criticized for embarking on a strict weight-loss program to fit into a dress originally worn by Marilyn Monroe. At the 2019 Met Gala, she wore a corset under her Thierry Mugler dress, later revealing that she had taken a course in ‘corset breathing lessons’ with one of the most famous corsetiers in the world, Mark Erskine-Pullin, better known as ‘Mr Pearl’. ‘.

Anya Taylor-Joy sparked a similar controversy earlier this year with this post of her tiny-waisted figure on Instagram

Kim’s sister Kylie Jenner looked elegant in a cream Oscar de la Renta dress with a strapless bodice inspired by a bullet bra and a fluffy train

Although fashion houses do not release the names of every team member involved in creating a look, because he regularly collaborates with Galliano, it is almost certain that Mr Pearl created the silver corset worn under Kardashian’s Margiela dress.

The hand-sized waist is reminiscent of a corset Anya Taylor-Joy wore in February, when the 28-year-old actress sparked controversy by posting a photo of herself on Instagram with a similarly tiny torso. It too was attributed to Maison Margiela, worn as an undergarment to which Taylor-Joy added a black and gold Margiela dress.

However, Kim was certainly not the only one who went for a hyper-feminine silhouette. Everywhere you looked at this year’s Met Gala, you saw boned corsets and hourglass figures, almost cartoonish in their upturned curves.

So why this emphasis on an ultra-feminine shape? Theories abound. Some say it’s the malign influence of AI, with its ability to replace models and actresses with hyper-realistic images of women who have exactly these kinds of ultra-curvaceous, unattainable bodies. No waist is too small on an AI model.

Others speculate that fashion, in a gender fluid world, is pushing women to the extreme end of the spectrum, distilling femininity by reducing it to stereotypical Jessica Rabbit-style curves. Another theory is that it is simply a reaction to the excess of androgyny that has dominated fashion lately.

Whatever the motivation, the waistline was everywhere at the Met Gala, even if other guests didn’t take the look to such an extreme. Lily James chose a pink satin dress from Erdem. Looking flawless in a strapless fishtail dress from Maison Margiela, Zendaya walked the red carpet for the second time in vintage black Givenchy couture from 1996 – the year she was born. This was also designed by John Galliano during his short tenure at Givenchy.

But it was Kim’s tiny waist that was the ultimate talking point of the evening – one that will no doubt also boost sales of Skims, her shapewear range. As a role model she can be very controversial. But as a business model it wins the game.