Kim Kardashian Says She 'Fought Against' Her Controversial Met Gala Look

Kim Kardashian West opened up to Vogue about fighting against her controversial Met Gala look for the magazine’s March 2022 issue, which she covers.

“I fought against it. I was like, I don’t know how I could wear the mask,” Kardashian West said of the haute couture look, which consisted of a T-shirt dress worn over a bodysuit, with a long pleated train, matching gloves, stilettos and a black balaclava that obscured her face.

“Why would I want to cover my face?” the reality star said of the all-black head-to-toe outfit, which was designed by Balenciaga’s creative director, Demna Gvasalia.

“But Demna and the team were like, This is a costume gala. This is not a Vanity Fair party where everyone looks beautiful,” Kardashian West said of the 2021 Met Gala, which was based on the Costume Institute exhibit “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.”

“There’s a theme and you have to wear the mask. That is the look,” she added.

Gvasalia told Vogue that he wanted to Kardashian West to wear the mask for the “shadow” dress because it was, “conceptually speaking, quite important. People would know instantly it was Kim because of her silhouette.”

“They wouldn’t even need to see her face, you know? And I think that’s the whole power of her celebrity, that people wouldn’t need to see her face to know it’s her,” he explained.

The outfit caused a stir on social media, where people compared the Skims founder to a fashionable dementor and a sleep paralysis demon.

Hafsa Lodi, a writer who is Muslim and specializes in modest fashion, voiced her disdain at Kardashian West’s outfit and also pointed out the irony in praising it.

“The burka, after all, has become a symbol of extremism,” Lodi wrote for The Independent in an article published in September. “And when Muslim women choose to wear skin-covering abayas and burkas, they’re considered stifling and oppressive ― the furthest thing from high fashion and glamorous.”

Kardashian West didn’t respond to Lodi’s criticism, but did have words for those who critiqued her for not exactly following the Gala’s “American” theme.

“What’s more American than a T-shirt head to toe?!” she wrote on Instagram at the time, alongside a carousel of various photographs from the night.

To read more of Kardashian West’s interview with Vogue, head to Vogue.com.

The March 2022 issue will be available on newsstands nationwide on Feb. 22.