Kim Kardashian at the Met Gala 2021. Photo: Getty
This week, Kim Kardashian accepted the Fashion Award at the People’s Choice Awards in California, wearing a body-cinching, corseted black minidress and gigantic galactic sunglasses by Balenciaga. While accepting the award, the contoured jewel of the Kardashian family thanked Kanye West and designers Zac Posen, Riccardo Tisci, and Olivier Rousteing of Balmain. “To Kanye, for really introducing me to the fashion world,” she said. “I fell in love with fashion and I’m so inspired by so many people. But again, this is like a dream that I get to wake up and wear these amazing clothes and try new things and take a risk. I’m so humbled.”
Kardashian at the People’s Choice Awards, December 2021. Photo: Getty
While we’ve seen Kardashian go through several eras, from Hervé Legér body-con dresses to rare vintage, this is certainly her sleekest moment. We’re currently witnessing the peak of Kardashian’s Balenciaga moment. Over the past few months, one of the most famous women in America has been stomping around town in almost exclusively full looks by the French house. Leading up to the fully covered outfit that she wore to the Met gala, arm in arm with Balenciaga’s creative director, Demna (who now goes only by his first name), she debuted a bevy of masked outfits. In August she wore a full-black spandex look for West’s Donda tour, with a thick braided ponytail, reminiscent of a BDSM whip, swinging down her back. (She also re-created a wedding ceremony with West, dressed in a white gown with a veil by Balenciaga.) A month later, in September, she opted for an all-black leather look with a gimp mask. Fast-forward, and Kardashian has cooled it on the mask-wearing but is still donning Balenciaga: a crushed-velvet fuchsia catsuit for Saturday Night Live, and another hot-pink catsuit for a night on the town. On Instagram she has posted herself in a completely bedazzled, body-skimming strapless dress and boot leggings, and in a pink catsuit at the house’s spring/summer 2022 show. So it came as no surprise that she accepted the Fashion Award in head-to-toe Balenciaga.
While Kardashian has had bombastic and excessive fashion moments, her Balenciaga era is a clean slate, a tabula rasa setting the stage for what’s to come. She is now 41 and in the process of getting a divorce from the man who introduced her to the boundless world of clothes – though his influence is still felt. It’s not as if she’s trying to hide in those masks but rather make a statement. It’s powerful that she can be totally covered up and still instantly recognizable. There is something about Kardashian entering our feeds, totally covered up or in logo-less gowns, that makes me feel like she is cocooning herself, gearing up to spread her wings in her next sartorial stage. We’ve already seen this micro-transformation as she wears Balenciaga: entering the world shrouded in black and exiting it in hot-hot pink. While it isn’t a minimalist era of Kardashian’s, it certainly feels like she is resetting her style, forgoing visible logos and transforming into Demna’s canvas.
Kardashian in New York City, October, 2021. Photo: Getty
Kardashian has already been through different fashion stages. In the aughts, she was marked by Juicy Couture tracksuits, logomania, and Paris Hilton. When she met West, he cleaned out her closet and gave her an HGTV-style makeover, putting her in Tisci-era Givenchy and Balmain. In 2018 she posed as her estranged husband’s muse in the paparazzi-captured look book for his brand, Yeezy. Kardashian then entered her archive era, wearing pieces like über-rare Alaïa catsuits and an epic Tom Ford-era Gucci thong. She even got Manfred Thierry Mugler out of retirement to create an impossibly cinched dress for the 2019 Met gala that made KK look like she was dripping with water.
Plenty of celebrities have gone through their sartorial eras and their transformations: Rihanna, Madonna, and Lady Gaga, to name a few. Some stars dive into trends, but Kardashian, in her own right, is a trailblazer. Right now she’s a happy Balenciaga ambassador. She’s doing her thing. It has us wondering: What’s next?
Kardashian in New York City, October 2021. Photo: Getty
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Originally published on Vogue.co.uk
