Kim Kardashian West Reveals She 'Had a Fully Different Look' Planned for the 2016 Met Gala
In lieu of attending the Met Gala — the event has been indefinitely postponed due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) — fashion’s elite are reminiscing on iconic moments from year’s past instead.
Kim Kardashian West is revealing how one of the most head-turning looks ever worn on the Met Gala steps came to be in a new Balmain YouTube video, and PEOPLE has an exclusive first look.
The clip takes fans all the way back to 2016, when Balmain creative director Olivier Rousteing commanded the carpet with his high-profile muses (often referred to as the “Balmain Army”), including Alessandra Ambrosio, Jourdan Dunn, Doutzen Kroes, and Cindy Crawford and the majority of the KarJenner crew dressed for that year’s theme: “Manus X Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology.”
The impressive line-up of supermodels turned heads, but Kanye West ultimately stole the show by wearing ripped jeans — yes, jeans — to the black-tie fashion event.
What's even more surprising is that Kardashian West (who stunned in a futuristic custom Balmain design alongside her husband) and Rousteing actually had another look in mind for the fashion ball, which she reveals for the first time in the Balmain YouTube video.
Jamie McCarthy/FilmMagic
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"I don't know if anyone knows this, but we had a fully different look; an all-sequin gown to the floor look that [I was] going to wear for the Met Gala," the Keeping Up with the Kardashians star said. "But instead, we wanted it to be more metal-y. We took a skirt and then a top from something else."
In the clip, Rousteing also reveals that, after a successful red carpet, partying with his Balmain Army inside the exclusive event felt like a "family reunion."
"What was beautiful is the diversity of our table, everybody looked incredible and everybody got along so well," he shared in the video. "It was a night that you almost forgot the stress of the Met Gala, it was more like a family reunion. And that is something I haven’t experienced a lot in my life."
At the time, it was no surprise that both the reality star and her husband (as well as mom Kris and sister Kylie) wore Balmain given her family’s well-established love for fashion house — Kim, Kanye, Kendall and Kylie have all starred in campaign’s for the brand in the past.
West sported the same ripped denim — which he paired with a silver, jewel-encrusted Balmain x Yeezy jacket, camel-colored boots and piercing blue contact lenses on the Met Gala red carpet — in Balmain's "Wolves" Fall/Winter 2016 campaign video.
Reflecting on the now-iconic moment, Rousteing said, “Kanye is a visionary."
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"I had a dream in my life, it was to create a fashion moment mixed with a music moment. Of course to do that, you need to love a song, to love an artist...that is so avant-garde and that has such a strong vision," the celeb-favorite designer added.
"More than a friend, he’s someone that inspires me for my fashion, the clothes that I’m creating but as well for the vision of fashion, beyond the clothes. He inspired me since the beginning. Because he’s daring and he does things before everybody and it takes time for people to understand. And he’s always been so generous."
