Khloe Kardashian knows that sometimes beauty is pain.
The Good American founder couldn't help but gush over Kim Kardashian's determination to wear some very uncomfortable accessories that brought her dazzling Maison Margiela custom ensemble to life at the 2024 Met Gala.
"Damsel in distress," Khloe commented on her sister's May 16 Instagram post. "That invisible heel is wild! How did you manage? I definitely would have fallen."
Kim shared a carousel of behind-the-scenes snaps getting ready for fashion's biggest night, including her no-heel clear platform heels, which required some major practice ahead of the red carpet.
"This is my shoe," the 43-year-old explained to Vogue before the May 6 event, holding up the accessory. "It's clever because if I had a shoe with a heel, the heel gets stuck in the metal skirt. And so that was our issue of walking."
"To wear these, you're on your tiptoes and you're balancing the whole time, flexing your calf muscles," Kim continued. "So, that's what I'm gonna have to do is stand on my tippy toes."
Ahead of the event, the SKIMS founder—who had to skip the Met after-parties for a work event in Germany—did a test run of the shoes when she learned she couldn't lean back in while walking. But she doesn't mind because, as she put it, "I think we really need the height on this look, so we gotta do what we gotta do."
And Khloe made sure to support Kim's showstopping look from home. When Kim stepped out in her look, the 39-year-old wrote on her Instagram Stories, "I am NOT OK!!!!!!! Holy smokes Batman."
But it's no surprise that Kim's recent ensemble left her sister nearly speechless. After all, the KKW Beauty founder is known for arriving in some challenging looks in the name of fashion.
Keep reading to see some of Kim's most iconic Met Gala looks.
2024: Breathing Is an "Art Form"
Kim channeled the "Garden of Time" theme in a Maison Margiela corseted gown—and controversial "boyfriend" sweater on top. However, as she told Vogue in a getting ready video, breathing was "an art form" in the waist-cinching ensemble, "but I got it."
On the first Monday of May in 2022, and accompanied by then-boyfriend Pete Davidson, Kim walked the Met Gala red carpet in the gold gown Marilyn Monroe famously wore while singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to John F. Kennedy in 1962. Since the dress was a piece of American history and could not be altered, Kim said she lost 16 pounds in three weeks in order to fit in it.
"I would wear a sauna suit twice a day, run on the treadmill, completely cut out all sugar and all carbs, and just eat the cleanest veggies and protein," she told Vogue. "I didn't starve myself, but I was so strict."
In order to channel Marilyn Monroe for the 2022 Met Gala, Kim spent 10 hours before the red carpet event bleaching her trademark brunette hair. In a YouTube video shared by Kylie Jenner, Kim quipped of the lengthy dye job, "I'll risk getting my hair to fall out."
Not only did Kim's her Balenciaga ensemble made it hard for Met Gala chairwoman Anna Wintour to recognize her during the 2021 event (the 2020 Met Gala was canceled amid the start of the COVID-19 pandemic), but the head-to-toe look also prevented the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star from jotting down future [ex-]boyfriend Pete Davidson phone number.
"I saw him at the Met and he knew I was hosting SNL but it wasn't announced yet. He came up to me and we were talking about SNL," she recalled of their encounter during an episode of Dear Media's Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast. "I had gloves on and I couldn't get into my phone."
Fortunately, the couple reconnected during Kim's SNL appearance and the rest was history.
To achieve the look of a super snatched waist in her Thierry Mugler dress at the 2019 Met Gala, themed "Camp: Notes on Fashion," Kim wore a constricting corset by Mr Pearl that made it difficult for her to move. Despite taking "breathing lessons" from the designer to ensure that she can breathe while wearing the undergarment, the ultra-cinched ensemble restricted her from sitting, forcing Kim to, um, opt out of using the bathroom once she had it on.
"If it's an emergency, I think I pee my pants and then have my sister wipe my leg up," she said while preparing for the event, as shown on Keeping Up With the Kardashians. "I'm not even joking. She can wipe my leg up."
Kim also said the beads on her gown, which hung off the fabric to make it look like she had just climbed out of the ocean, poked her from the inside. She quipped, "It's a cactus."
Although Kim radiated in gold on the red carpet in 2018, her Versace gown proved to more troublesome once she got inside the Met. In a video shared to her social media account, Kim said the sequins on her dress kept getting caught on other people's clothes—particularly the tulle skirt of fellow guest SZA.
"When your dress is connected to this beauty," she quipped in the clip, showing their downs entwined together as assistants tried to untangle the knotted chaos. "We're stuck together!"
You could say that Kim didn't get much beauty beauty rest before the 2016 gala. After all, the reality star previously explained, she met up with Balmain designer Olivier Rousteing once she flew into New York at 1 a.m. for a fitting, where they "literally cut skirts in half, created tops from dresses, and stayed up until 4 a.m. to get the perfect option that we felt fit the theme."
The result was a result was a futuristic metallic gown that paired perfectly with the theme of "Manus × Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology."
Kim added, "The process of getting ready for an event like this is intense; it really takes a village."
The SKIMS mogul later called bleaching her eyebrows for the look a "big mistake."
Kim was in the first trimester of her pregnancy with her and ex Kanye West's second child, son Saint West, when the then-couple attended the 2015 Met Gala. She ultimately concealed her baby bump in a sparkling, semi-sheer Roberto Cavali gown. She wrote on her app after the event, "I was trying to hide it."
Before Kim had even stepped onto the red carpet at the 2014 Met Gala, her look was already causing some drama. Not only did Kim suffer a wardrobe malfunction in the high-slit Lanvin gown while on her way to the Met, but the chunky belt and leather cuffs she originally wore with the dress were "a bit too rock 'n' roll" for her taste.
To make sure she was camera-ready, Kim ditched the accessories in the car and swapped them for a clean black satin belt.